More details on the device and the pax encounter in this update:
PASSENGERS TELL HOW INCIDENT UNFOLDED
A passenger who identified himself as Andy [apparently Leoncelli from the post above - Airbubba] told 3AW how he tried to stop the alleged bomber.
“We literally took off, ten minutes into the take off, and I was sitting in business class 4A seat, and I could hear this idiot saying that he wanted to go in and see the pilot,” he said. “The staff were saying ‘sit back down sir, sit back down sir’. He goes, ‘no, I’m not going to sit back down – I’m going to blow the plane up’” he said. “The staff screamed out ‘I need some help, I need some help’. So I jumped up, undid my buckle, and approached him.”
“I said mate, what are you effing doing? And he said ‘I’m going to blow the f**king plane up, I’m going to blow the f**king plane up. And I was going, oh my God, he’s f**king insane.
“So, I took a step back. And I said to my friend, mate this guy’s serious. We’d better f**king do something,” he said. “So, I approached him and he ran down the side and then he ended up going down the back of the plane.”
“Then two lads grabbed him and disarmed him and mashed the crap out of him and put hog ties on him and took the giant black thing out of his hand,” he said.
Andy says the device in the man’s hand was “the size of a watermelon”.
“It was huge, it was black and it had two black antennaes coming off it, but it also looked like an iPhone jack. So it could have been just a beatbox thing,” he said. “I think the guy was just an idiot”.
Saiqa Chaudhery, whose husband was on the plane, told news.com.au that the man appeared to be under the influence of drugs.
“He heard a lot of screaming and (an) airhostess calling out for help as a passenger attacked her,” Ms Chaudhery said. “Some other passengers and crew tied the man down and (the) flight landed back at Melbourne Airport 25 minutes after takeoff.”
Malaysia Airlines flight MH 128 returns to Melbourne after incident on plane
A lot of recent bluetooth speakers have the USB charger function and could certainly have a battery (or worse) much larger than the one in the tablets or notebook computers.