Bomb Threat In Lavatory Diverts Delta Flight
This morning Delta Air Lines Flight 1706, a Boeing 737-832 (73H), carrying 137 passengers, and 6 crew, departed Detroit Metropolitan Wayne County Airport (DTW)’s gate A23 at 8:37am, three minutes early, for its 4 hour 46 minute flight to San Diego (SAN), however somewhere over middle America, a Flight Attendant found a note that was interpreted as a bomb threat in one of the airplane’s two rear lavatories.
Upon finding the note, the flight attendant brought the threat to the attention of the Captain, who in turn was in contact with the airline directly, and flight 1706 was diverted to Albuquerque International Sunport Airport (ABQ). Upon arrival at ABQ, at 9:54am MDT Delta Flight 1706 taxied to a remote area of the airport where the aircraft was met by Airport Police, Federal Law Enforcement, the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) and the Airport Fire Department, at which time all the passengers and bags were removed from the aircraft.
Once all the passengers and baggage were removed from the aircraft, the bags were lined up to be checked fro explosives, while passenger and crew of Delta Flight 1706 were taken off the taxiway to be interviewed by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI).
At this time law enforcement have cleared Delta Flight 1706’s aircraft of any explosives threat and ruled the threat to be a hoax, however passengers are continuing to be interviewed by the FBI.
Below is a photo from Sean C. Watkins, a passenger on Delta Flight 1706, of passengers watching law enforcement walk down a line of passenger baggage being screened for explosives. (this photo is copyrighted to Mr. Watkins, it is not in the public domain and it is used with permission)
This story is currently in progress, with information primarily being provided by an official with a federal agency on scene at ABQ with Delta Flight 1706. More details will be updated later as they become available.
UPDATE 8-MAY-2011 8:53PM EST : Delta Air Lines Flight 1706 was cleared by the FBI after full interviews of all passengers and crew and TSA supervised screening of baggage through canine inspections and hand searches. Â Flight 1706 departed ABQ at 4:23pm MDT and arriving at SAN’s Gate 38 at 5:15pm PST without further incident. Law enforcement has not stated any arrests have been made or that any passengers were detained at this time. The FBI considers this an on going investigation.
Happy Flying!
A lot of this post seems to be pure supposition on the part of the author. Without a list of citations, there is no way to evaluate the accuracy of the post. The post seems to agree with the news reports, but contains more information. Of course anyone can post anything to the internet.
Colpuck,
I was in the middle of a Twitter conversation with Fish this morning, ad can personally witness that these facts are not speculation.
Many of the facts came from a series of replies on twitter directly from Delta’s twitter account to Mr. Frischling.
Just because it isn’t in mainstream media doesn’t mean it’s speculation.
John,
I cited my source at the end of the post.
Given that I had my information live on Twitter…go search it…before all but one other news outlet had anything on this, I’d love your explanation for where the info that is now being reported by others…after I had it and reported it…came from?
I am not a mind reader, nor can I see the future. But I do know how to find information, this time someone with a federal agency at ABQ who happened to be on scene. This is cited at the end of my post.
Happy Flying!
-Fish
You know why this happened. Muslims taking their revenge over a delta pilot who removed terrorists from his plane earlier this week to ensure passenger safety!
I hope they took all the terrorists for islam on that flight into custody!
Dear Death to Allah, I assume you do not know Arabic but Allah is God. So having said that why do u assume that there are Muslims let alone terrorists on board. I am a Christian Arab and I take exception to that.
Further, I think the Captain on that Delta flight should have been removed from the flight. The passengers had no problems on that flight or the next flight the 2 clerics flew on.
Bomb threat hoaxes are not uncommon and are taken seriously by all concerned in the interest of the Safety of passengers and crew.
Why did TSA meet the plane? Were they hoping to find a driver’s license that they could inspect?
Why not ELP or Las Curses NM or Denver Las Curses sees no Comercial Flights ELP is small but no they had to go with ABQ my airport erg! Come on FBI TSA FAA you should of sent to Las Curses erg!
If they really thought there was a bomb in one of the checked bags why do they have a line of people (and kids) standing 7-15 feet away from them. Oh, it’s to make you feel safer.