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Plane delayed as passenger reports math equations to be terrorism threat

FILE: An American Airlines Airbus A319 jetliner taxies along the tarmac at Vancouver International Airport, Richmond, BC, May 10, 2015. THE CANADIAN PRESS IMAGES/Bayne Stanley

PHILADELPHIA – An Ivy League professor says his flight was delayed because a fellow passenger thought the equations he was writing might be a sign he was a terrorist.

American Airlines confirms that a woman expressed suspicions about University of Pennsylvania economics professor Guido Menzio. She said she was too ill to take the Air Wisconsin-operated flight.

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Menzio was flying from Philadelphia to Syracuse on Thursday to give a talk at Queen’s University in Ontario, Canada. He was solving a differential equation, but said he was told the woman thought he might be a terrorist because of what he was writing.

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American spokesman Casey Norton said the crew followed protocol to take care of an ill passenger and then to investigate her allegations. They determined them to be non-credible.

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