Professor arrested in plane bag alert

A maths professor on a flight to Washington DC was arrested in a terror alert after passengers said he had placed a suspicious package in the plane’s overhead bin.

State police said 35-year-old Ognjen Milatovic refused the crew’s request to hang up on his mobile phone and sit down on the US Airways flight yesterday.

Passengers reported hearing strange noises coming from a plastic bag. But police said later that the bag contained a set of keys, a bagel with cream cheese, some other small food items, a hat and a wallet.

Mr Milatovic, a mathematics and statistics professor at the University of North Florida, is facing charges of disorderly conduct and interfering with operation of an aircraft.

His father Boris told WHDH-TV the incident was a “misunderstanding”.