FILE: A JetBlue Airways plane takes off from San Francisco’s SFO International Airport in July 2020.
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On May 4, a “disgruntled” JetBlue passenger who missed his flight from Las Vegas to Los Angeles allegedly said his luggage contained a possible bomb, a Los Angeles airport police spokesman told SFGATE. Airport police evacuated passengers and crew from the plane after it landed in Los Angeles.
“At approximately 12:57 p.m., the LVMPD was notified of an angry passenger at Harry Reid International Airport. The individual had made some worrying remarks about his luggage after missing her flight,” a spokesman for the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department said in a statement to SFGATE.
According to FlightAware, JetBlue Flight 879 was scheduled to depart Las Vegas at 12:12 p.m. It departed at 12:49 p.m., 37 minutes late, and arrived at LAX just after 2 p.m., 32 minutes late
When the plane arrived, the pilots isolated the plane from the rest of the airport. Police and firefighters were called to the Terminal 4 tarmac to investigate the threat, according to LA news channel KABC. Passengers and crew were allowed to disembark via truck-mounted stairs at around 3:20 p.m. and board shuttles to the airport more than an hour after the plane arrived. Around 4:30 p.m., police completed their investigation and found that luggage on board the flight had been cleared, airport police told SFGATE.
“After a thorough investigation, it was determined that the comments came out of frustration and not genuine threat,” LVMPD told SFGATE.
LVMPD issued a misdemeanor complaint to the passenger upon completion of the investigation into violating airport rules.