Body-Bomb Scare Aboard Flight Forces Emergency Landing
The Paris-to-North-Carolina flight was escorted to Maine by a pair of F-15s.
| Posted Tuesday, May 22, 2012, at 2:37 PM
Photo by Joshua Lott/Getty Images.
Some more disturbing news for frequent flyers: ABC News reports that a North Carolina-bound flight from Paris was forced to make an emergency landing in Maine on Tuesday after a French citizen passed a note to the flight crew claiming that she had a surgically implanted device on her.
House Homeland Security Chairman Peter King told the network that the Cameroon-born woman is now under arrest, and that doctors who had examined her found no signs of the body bomb.
An unnamed senior federal law enforcement official also tells CNN that authorities have determined that no bomb was involved in the incident, and that the woman's note did not specifically indicate the device was a threat or that she was threatening the flight.
The official word from both US Airways and the TSA remains mostly vague: the airline has confirmed that the plane, which was carrying 179 passengers, was diverted to Bangor due to a "security issue"; the TSA says only that there were "reports of a passenger who exhibited suspicious behavior during flight."
After learning of the bomb scare, the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) launched two F-15s to escort the Boeing 767 to the Bangor International Airport, where it landed safely around noon.
