Federal prosecutors allege that a Michigan man who missed his flight at Detroit Metropolitan Airport on Thursday called in a fake bomb threat in an attempt to delay its departure.
Spirit Airlines got a call at around 6:25 a.m. Thursday that someone was targeting their flight 2145 out of Detroit with a bomb, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Michigan said in a release.
The caller said that “there’s gonna be someone who’s gonna try to blow up the airport,” that the bomb would be brought through the Transportation Security Administration checkpoint and that the explosive could not be detected, USAO-EDMI said.
Spirit Airlines flight 2145 was scheduled to leave Detroit for Los Angeles International Airport at 7:10 a.m., according to flight tracking website FlightAware. Instead of leaving, it was deplaned and the plane was searched by bomb dogs and FBI agents who found no explosives on board, the attorney’s office said.
Federal prosecutors accuse John Charles Robinson, 23, of Monroe, Michigan, of placing the call via a cellphone. He arrived at the airport on Thursday and was told he was too late to make flight 2145 on time.
Mr. Robinson then left the airport but returned later in an attempt to board another flight headed to Los Angeles. Instead, he was arrested upon his return to the Detroit airport, the attorney’s office said. He was released on bond and is due back in court on June 27.
“No American wants to hear the words ‘bomb’ and ‘airplane’ in the same sentence. Making this kind of threat undermines our collective sense of security and wastes valuable law enforcement resources,” U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Michigan Jerome F. Gorgon, Jr. said.
The passengers of flight 2145 were rescreened, Spirit Airlines told the Detroit News.
Flight 2145 ultimately left for Los Angeles after a more than six-hour delay at around 1:21 p.m., according to FlightAware. It landed in Los Angeles at 6 p.m. EDT without further incident.
