Fox: 'Threatening note from God' grounds plane at NY airport

Raw Story
Dec. 27, 2006

A "threatening note" attributed to "God" led to a U.S. Airways plane being grounded at LaGuardia Airport in New York on Christmas Eve.

U.S. Airways Express Flight 3068, which left Charleston, South Carolina en route to Portland, Maine earlier today, was diverted to the New York City area airport.

The man, "who appeared to be about 35 years old," the Associated Press reported on Monday, "gave the note to another passenger, Tammy Budek, who gave it to a flight attendant as the plane rolled toward the runway at New York's LaGuardia Airport."

"He said he had AIDS, and the shedding of his blood and all our blood would cure all sickness," Budek told the Portland Press Herald. According to Budek, the man's note suggested "he was Jesus and it was time for everybody to die."

"Budek said the man who passed her the suspicious note 'smiled the whole time' while authorities cuffed him and removed him from the plane," Elbert Aull reported for the Portland, Maine newspaper.

The note writer was taken into custody and hospitalized, but a Port Authority spokesman said it was unlikely he would be charged with any crimes.

According to FOX, the pilot requested for a K-9 team to come on board and sweep the plane before the passengers got off. All luggage was then scattered out across the plane as the authorities searched further.

Port Authority of New York and New Jersey spokesman Alan Hicks later said that nothing suspicious had been found by the K-9 units.

"The other passengers were let back onto the plane, which was expected to continue to its destination," ABC affiliate WMTW reports.

Clip from Fox News report: