Planes held at JFK after bomb threat

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NEW YORK, Sept. 18 (UPI) -- Two planes were stopped and searched for explosives at New York's JFK Airport after someone called in a threat to the port authority, officials said.

The planes, belonging to American Airlines and Fin Air, were taxied to a secure location and searched with no explosives found. They were allowed to take off after about an hour delay Monday. FBI and Port Authority Police interviewed the crew, who said nothing was amiss.

The phone call said two terrorists had secreted themselves away in the planes' wheel wells and had brought explosives on board.

Passengers aboard the American flight said the pilot notified them that they were being detained after a bomb threat, but that everyone remained calm.

"The pilot came on, and he told us basically that he had no information but that we were being held due to a possible phone-in threat," Brian Teitelbaum, an American Airlines passenger, told WBAC-TV, New York.

What the passengers didn't hear was a terse exchange between the pilot and air traffic controllers, who initially declined to tell the pilot why his plane was being held back.

"OK. We're surrounded by emergency vehicles, there's a reason for this," the pilot told the control tower. "Somebody's got to give us the reason or we're going to evacuate the aircraft. You got 60 seconds."

Eventually controllers relented and told the pilot about the terror threat.