Authorities checked and cleared two Delta planes at New York City's JFK airport late Monday after the airline received a threat for a flight number shared by the two aircraft, officials said. The flights were later cleared, the FBI said.
There was no evidence to suggest that the threat was real, a law enforcement official told NBC News, but authorities followed protocol in such cases.
Delta Flight 468 refers to routes from San Francisco to JFK and from JFK to Tel Aviv. Another airline received an anonymous bomb threat for the flight number, said Lindsay McDuff, a spokeswoman for Delta Airlines. The person reported that an explosive device was onboard, suggesting it might be a pipe bomb, sources told NBC News.
Both flights were checked and cleared by authorities, said Joe Pentangelo, a police spokesman for the Port Authority of New York & New Jersey.
"All clear at JFK airport following earlier bomb threat to Delta flight," the FBI's New York office said on Twitter.
Austen Holman, 29, of New York, said she was on the San Francisco flight and that passengers had "no clue" there was a problem until the plane landed.
“The captain, as calmly as he possibly could, said, ‘We have some bad news. There’s been a threat on this plane,’” she said.
Holman said passengers had to leave everything onboard when they were evacuated, including carry-on bags. They were allowed to take their phones but forbidden to use the devices until they arrived at the terminal.
“For the most part, everyone remained pretty calm,” she said.
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