Let's be social WHAT WAS I THINKING??? (An Ontario Airport tweeter gets unwanted attention)

While searching for the latest news about major investments that Los Angeles World Airports is planning for Ontario International Airport, I ran across a breaking story about a United Airlines jet that took off from LAX, bound for Dulles.

It didn't get that far.

In fact, it only got as far as Ontario before making an emergency landing.

At the time that I read the story, there was no official word on what caused the abortion of the flight. So we had to rely upon "citizen journalists" to fill in the gaps.

"They can't deplane us until the fire is out, it's not in the cabin. Cabin has smoke in it though. It was smoky mid-flight. Again, not fun," tweeted passenger Mitchell Hashimoto...

But then...

...who later deleted the post, citing unwanted media attention.

Well, not exactly. As the founder of HashiCorp, Hashimoto presumably wants media attention - of a particular type.

When I checked Hashimoto's Twitter feed, I did find a few tweets about the flight.

9:11 am:

I don’t think I’ll be flying to Belgium today. One flight is good enough for me today. Well try again another day.

9:12 am:

But also, our pilot handled that situation super fast and professionally. High five.

That second tweet elicited a reply from Rachel Hawatmeh, someone that Hashimoto didn't know.

@mitchellh Hi Mitchell, reaching out from ABC News, can you give us a call at 818 553 5500??

At some point Hashimoto tweeted the information on the fire. He later deleted the tweet, but the text was preserved by - you guessed it - ABC News.

Eventually, Hashimoto tweeted this at 10:06 am:

Sorry folks, deleting some tweets because I’m being contacted by press about my flight and I’m not interested.

The sentiment is understandable - one moment you're on your way to Belgium, the next you're stuck in Ontario, without a Hugo Boss store in sight.

But when HashiCorp wants coverage for its latest product, forget about getting coverage from ABC News. Rachel Hawatmeh will be otherwise occupied.