Photo courtesy of AirLive.net on Twitter
An American Airlines flight arriving at John F. Kennedy International in New York on Sunday was briefly taken to a remote area of the airport after a bomb threat was phoned in to authorities.
It was the third such incident in the last four weeks and, as with the others, proved to be unfounded.
Nonetheless, officials took the threat seriously and as Flight 67 from Barcelona landed on Runway 31 at JFK, it was directed away from the terminals after being met on the tarmac by emergency responders.
As with social media these days, rumors were prevalent before the flight even landed as aviation enthusiasts and experts began speculating on which flight had the threat after hearing transmission chatter, particularly from firefighters and EMS as the first calls came in.
Many passengers - including former UBS president and chief operating officer Robert Wolf - began tweeting about the incident and taking photos as the NYPD bomb squad searched the plane and then eventually evacuated the passengers.
Passengers were interviewed by authorities and then bussed to customs.
"There was no panic," passenger Dave Brubaker told NBC News in New York. "Nobody felt like, 'Oh something terrible's going to happen.' It seemed like it was not credible."
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