No bomb found on Delta plane at Denver International Airport after threatening note discovered

No bomb was found during a search of a Delta Air Lines plane at Denver International Airport Friday after a threatening note was discovered during the flight from Detroit. Sources told CALL7 Investigator John Ferrugia a flight attendant found a note in a rear galley of the plane threatening a bomb was onboard. Radio traffic recordings captured the Delta pilot informing air traffic control about the threat.

"Flight 1500 now declaring an emergency at this time. We have a written threat aboard the aircraft," the pilot radioed. "Our flight attendant found a note indicating there was a bomb onboard towards the rear of the aircraft."

DIA spokeswoman Julie Smith said the Delta flight had a "possible security threat," but she did not confirm the bomb threat.

"They found the corner of one of the (magazine) pages was ripped out and that was the note that was written on, and said, 'There is a bomb' or something like that," passenger Aaron Baratz told 7NEWS reporter Marshall Zelinger.

"The FBI came on board the plane and asked, of course, did anybody leave the note. They said there was a piece of paper in the back with the word bomb written on it," said passenger Joe Vance.

Flight 1500 landed safely at 4:39 MT and the pilot was directed to taxi the plane to a remote location of DIA where it was met by law enforcement and fire crews. A K9 team searched the plane, passengers and bags, but no bomb was turned up. After the plane landed, passenger Tone Sevy tweeted that passengers could not take anything off the plane or from overhead bins.

"They came on the announcement and they said, 'There's been a threat to the aircraft, everybody needs to turn your phones back off and this is not a request, it's a demand,'" said Baratz.

On Twitter, Sevy added the Delta pilots were "low key [and] put us down fast a couple miles" from the airport. 

"K9 on plane, buses, checking us & personal bags. Sprayed with water before we deplaned," Sevy tweeted. "@Delta And TSA on it. Crazy situation".

Eventually, the 151 passengers and four crew members were allowed to return to the parked plane for their belongings. But Sevy tweeted at 7:30 p.m. that passengers were still being held in buses on the tarmac, waiting to be questioned by the FBI nearly three hours after the plane landed. At about 8:40 p.m., the passengers were released at the terminal.

FBI spokesman Dave Joly issued this statement: "The FBI Denver Division and multiple other agencies responded to a security concern on Delta Flight 1500 this evening at Denver International Airport. Passengers, crew members, and the aircraft were rescreened and interviews were conducted. All of the Delta Flight 1500 passengers were allowed to reclaim their luggage and continue with their travel plans by 10:00 p.m. local time, on Friday, April 18, 2014."

"We currently do not believe a credible threat existed to the flight. Out of an abundance of caution security protocols were implemented and safety measures were closely followed," Joly added.

According to Baratz, the note was found in the back of the plane, but was torn off a page from a magazine in a row around 25 or 27. He said that row included an elderly couple and another passenger who never got up to go to the back of the plane.

"We don't think Delta cleaned the plane before we got back on, which happens all the time, but that's a pretty big thing to miss," said Baratz.

After the passengers were released, passenger Tone Sevy tweeted: "Appreciate FBI, TSA, Delta, just a process no one ever wants to deal with."

Tone Sevy @ToneSevy

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We are all OK, all bags and thing on plane, crazy situation. A lot of confusion among everyone. #Delta1500

1:41 AM - 19 Apr 2014

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United Airlines flight temporarily grounded at JFK Airport by bomb threat made on Twitter

A Tweet that referenced a bomb threat on a United Airlines flight from New York to Dulles International Airport outside of Washington, D.C., led a flight to be grounded, evacuated and searched at JFK on Wednesday night. No bomb was found.

Passengers were evacuated from a United Airlines flight prior to its scheduled takeoff from JFK Airport on Wednesday night after a company official spotted a bomb threat on Twitter, sources said.

United Airline’s corporate security saw the tweet, which was posted at 7:05 p.m. and read: “There is a bomb on a United Airlines flight from JFK to Dulles,” according to the Port Authority Police Department.

A 7:40 p.m. flight from JFK to Dulles International Airport outside of Washington, D.C., had already boarded at Terminal 7 but had not left the gate area when the tweet was spotted. Authorities evacuated all 49 passengers from the plane and the FBI began sweeping it for explosives, sources said.

No explosives were found. The plane took off about two hours late, officials said.

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Dozens of teenagers are now tweeting bomb jokes to American Airlines

People use their smart devices on an American Airlines plane. (Reuters/Carlo Allegri)

One dumb teenager is easily excused — but the host of Twitter users currently tweeting bomb threats at major airlines is another story entirely.

In case you’ve somehow missed this latest round of Internet idiocy, here’s what went down: Sunday night, a Dutch teenager identified only as “Sarah” infamously tweeted a threat at American Airlines. (“hello my name’s Ibrahim and I’m from Afghanistan. I’m part of Al Qaida and on June 1st I’m gonna do something really big bye,” she wrote. Hilarious!) She then promptly made the account private and insisted it was all a joke — “I’m so stupid, I’m scared,” she wrote at one point — but not before American reported her name and IP address to authorities, leading to her arrest in Rotterdam on Monday.

You’d think that would warn off other pranksters, but the opposite has actually been true. In fact, at least a dozen other people have threatened American or, oddly, Southwest, an unrelated airline, under the guise of a “prank” or “joke.”

Army Jacket . @ShyyLicious

@AmericanAir I have a bomb under the next plane to take off

6:42 PM - 14 Apr 2014

@AmericanAir I’m gonna bomb your 737 jet

— ▲ demi ▼ (@ddlovatosteddy) April 14, 2014

@AmericanAir You really seem to not care that i’m about to bomb your plane that’s headed to Paris. Btw, my name is Ahmed.

— Allie (@ComedyBatman) April 14, 2014

@SouthwestAir @WesleyWalrus is gonna bomb your next few flights

— donnie cyrus. (@MileyFawLife) April 14, 2014

admrl. anonymous @nonfreak

@Politie_Rdam @YourAnonCentral @AmericanAir release her or I'll bomb your HQ. you gonna arrest me now?

7:50 PM - 14 Apr 2014

@AmericanAir Hello Am From Iraq i Want 1Million Or I Will Plan A Bomb To Your Next Flight To Paris !! Bye Bye America ”

— The Real Slim Shady (@WaleedMeshari) April 14, 2014

eduardo @eduardo37276391

@AmericanAir Hello, I'm eduardo. ago a couple of weeks were warned, i´m ignored. you will pay the consequences. Bomb! HAHAHAHA

8:06 PM - 14 Apr 2014

We hardly need reiterate the problems with this kind of thing: airlines need to take threats seriously, no matter how silly they seem, which means a lot of airline employees (and presumably, police and security and FBI) are spending a lot of time tracking down nuisance threats, as well.

zahra @versaceftziam

@AmericanAir hello my name is Ibrahim I think you guys are the BOMB!!!!!!

4:13 PM - 14 Apr 2014

Kale @KalenRiley10

.@SouthwestAir I bake really good pies and my friends call me "the bomb" am I still allowed to fly?

2:09 AM - 14 Apr 2014

Leaving aside, for a minute, the vast waste of taxpayer money and manpower that represents, there’s another more ground-level problem here: This trolling completely destroys whatever incentives airlines have to engage with their customers on Twitter. Which is, as many a Twitter-using traveler knows, basically the only decent line of airline customer service left.

Just last week, the Post’s Andrea Sachs reported on the use of social media at major airlines — it’s “unrivaled in its efficiency,” one expert said. In other words, if you ever have a problem on a flight, social media is the surest way to get relief. Or it will be, until other Internet trolls spam airlines with distracting, and potentially dangerous, clutter. (Imagine the chaos, if 4chan or some such signed on.)

Then again, that kind of disruption is presumably just what trolls want. That term is often used as a catch-all for agents of Internet mischief and unpleasantness, but recent studies have actually suggested a link between dedicated trolling and psychopathy. To quote a February paper published in the journal Personality and Individual Differences, “it might be said that online trolls prototypical everyday sadists” — a.k.a., people who enjoy deceiving and manipulating other people.

That isn’t to say that Sarah is a sadist, of course; maybe she’s just another teenager spewing bite-sized idiocies into the void, like so many teenagers before her. Her copycats, on the other hand, know exactly what they’re doing. Let’s hope they realize how unfunny this schtick is — sooner, rather than later.

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