A 20-year-old man, who has been arrested for allegedly falsely claiming he found a letter in an airplane bathroom that indicated a bomb was on United Airlines flight, faces a potential penalty of 10 years in federal prison and $250,000 fine.
During a flight from San Diego to Denver on January 16, 2017 the passenger allegedly claimed to have found in the plane’s bathroom and alerted the flight’s crew to the possible threat.
The note said that there was a bomb on the plane and that the flight crew should not attempt to land the aircraft, the news release says.
When the plane landed, it was parked on an isolated taxiway. Passengers were evacuated onto waiting buses and the aircraft was swept by Denver Police Department explosive detection canine assets. No explosives were found.
The FBI determined that the passenger wrote the note in his seat on paper he found jammed in the seat and took it into a bathroom. He placed the note in the toilet seat cover dispenser and then pointed it out to one of the flight attendants.
