Bomb joke backfires, grounds plane (NYC to Fort Lauderdale)

CNN ^ | September 14, 2002 Posted: 6:36 PM EDT (2236 GMT) | CNN Producer Laura Dolan contributed to this report.

[weegee]

NEW YORK (CNN) -- A Delta Air Lines flight about to leave LaGuardia Airport for Fort Lauderdale Saturday afternoon returned to the gate after a passenger told a flight attendant he had brought a bomb onboard, police said.

Passengers were taken off the plane and the man was arrested, said Port Authority Police Sgt. John O'Donnell. A search of the man's luggage and the plane, with at least one bomb-sniffing dog, turned up no explosives, O'Donnell said.

[thegreatbeast]

A month in jail isn't good enough. This twit probably cost just the 100 people on board 3 man-hours each. Airplane fuel, personnel, security- this is big money. And deserves a proper punishment. Something lengthy and expensive.
Those a-holes in GA/FL should do a year at the minimum.

[InvisibleChurch]

a good way to stop this silliness is for the airlines to charge those numbskulls however much $ they lost on being grounded ... kind of like hikers who get lost in unauthorized areas needing helicopters to find them are charged for their mis-doings

[joesnuffy]

Passive Agressive terrorism

[nutmeg]

Of course, if he was middle eastern and made a joke about a bomb in Miami while eating at a diner in Georgia that was overheard by a white southern female, he would be released without charges and the press and the ACLU would rip the white southern lady to shreads because she's obviously a racist.

Yup, my thoughts exactly. I sure hope someone else comes forward SOON to corroborate that poor woman's - that patriot's - story. But I'm not holding my breath.

[Misterioso]

A friend of mine lost his job at the post office for sprinkling some scouring powder around another employee's work space. He had over twenty years of service but thought that an anthrax prank would be fun. This was during the height of the scare. Good guy, bad brain.

[nimc]

When is a bomb joke funny?

When it is like this.

Now that is a bomb joke.

[boris]

Can you post or point to a larger version? I love it.

[Scott from the Left Coast]

It is amazing that there are people out there, after all that has happened, that are still so stupid to think that this sort of thing will be just passed off as funny in that situation.

[nimc]

I wish I did have a larger one boris. I've had this one for so long I can't remember where I got it. E-mail I think.
I can enlarge it some with a photo program.

[nimc]

How is this ?

[feedback doctor]

When the authorites approached he should have said, "She's lying, I never said that! She said that just because of my olive complexion. Call CAIR for me! My rights have been trampled on."

[ArcLight]

The man was about 6 feet tall, heavy set, with olive skin and dark hair. She said he had no foreign accent.

CNN must be "getting it." No hyperventilating about the horrors of "ethnic profiling" here. They tell us what the guy looked like and whether he sounded like an Arab. It's as if they've figured out what we should all be looking for. I'm almost shocked to see such candor here.

[weegee]

There are also deranged people who are still trying to enter the cockpits of planes in flight. Anyone attempts that on a flight I am travelling on will be tackled at the very least.

[weegee]

Last year when I was travelling from Prauge to Amsterdam (prior to 9/11), the man in customs jokingly asked me if I had a bomb with me (I had a carryon in my hand and I don't look anything but American).

[Dante3]

Seems a lot of the nut cases as well as actual terrorists seem to have a Florida link.

[ErnBatavia]

Of course, he probably shouldn't have worn this getup...

[cubreporter]

Yep, understand completely!!!

[LurkedLongEnough]

The man was about 6 feet tall, heavy set, with olive skin and dark hair. She said he had no foreign accent.

Maybe it was Ben Stiller from "Meet the Parents". "Bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb" he joked after being nailed by the FBI.

[ladyinred]

Perhaps the freeway closure incident was not a joke afterall. There is more evidence now apparently according to the Sheriff. I certainly approve of the authorites checking out every threat, joke or not.

[dfwgator]

Of course, that could also be coordinated by the terrorists to create a bunch of diversions and false alarms to create a "boy who cried wolf" scenario.