A passenger on a flight diverted in a mid-air security alert has told a court that the man at the centre of the scare twice told a steward he was going to kill him.
Tayyab Subhani, 30, and Mohammed Safdar, 42, were arrested on May 24 after a Boeing 777 heading to Manchester was forced to make an emergency landing at Stansted Airport in Essex.
The men, who are from Lancashire, deny endangering the safety of an aircraft by threatening to harm crew and passengers and threatening to blow up the plane.
Prosecutors told the trial at Chelmsford Crown Court, in Essex, that neither man was a terrorist or extremist but cabin crew had been forced to take his threats seriously.
Giving evidence, fellow passenger Ferzana Rana said Safdar told a steward "I'm going to kill you" twice in Urdu.
She said she had been flying home from Pakistan on flight PK709 with her husband and two young children.
During the flight Safdar became abusive towards cabin crew and refused to return to his seat, she said.
The flight was diverted to Stansted Mrs Rana said Safdar spoke in a mix of English and Urdu as the confrontation escalated.
She added: "He was swearing in Urdu and a lot of the words and language were not something anybody would want to repeat."
Asked by Simon Mayo QC, representing Safdar, if the steward had taken the remarks seriously, she said: "No, it was just an idiotic remark."
She added: "Later on, the steward asked me to confirm what I had heard and asked me whether I had heard the word bomb.
"I hadn't heard that word or anything that might suggest the presence of a bomb."
She added that, once on the ground, many of the passengers expressed annoyance that the flight had been diverted over a "trivial incident".
The first reference she heard to a bomb came after an announcement was made informing those on-board that the flight had been diverted.
Mrs Rana said: "I heard the men say jokingly between themselves 'I bet they think there's a bomb on the plane'."
Safdar, a married father of three, of Hallam Crescent, and Subhani, of Townley Street, both in Nelson, Lancashire, claim the allegations are made up and that cabin crew encouraged passengers to corroborate their story.
The pilot, who described the incident as the most serious of his career, contacted UK air traffic control and was instructed to begin emergency procedures, the court heard.
Typhoon fighter jets were scrambled to intercept the flight.
Once on the ground, the aircraft was surrounded by armed police and a full-scale security alert was called.
The men were arrested and hundreds of passengers were forced to remain on board until investigators established there was no danger.
The trial is expected to last five weeks.
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