Terrified passengers hold their hands up as armed police storm a JetBlue plane after a wrong code was used over the radio which mistakenly said the plane was being HIJACKED
A JetBlue pilot accidentally told air traffic control that his plane had been hijacked, sparking a massive police response at John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York.
The pilot had apparently told controllers that the aircraft was having radio issues, but mistakenly used the code to signal a hijacking, the New York Post reports.
The incident led to dozens of Port Authority police and firefighters surrounding JetBlue flight 1623 around 8pm on Tuesday stopping it from getting near the terminal.
A spokeswoman for JetBlue called the incident a ‘false alarm’.
‘Shortly before departure, Flight 1623 from New York JFK to Los Angeles experienced a radio issue impacting the crew’s ability to communicate and a false alarm was sent to JFK tower,’ she said in a statement.
‘While communication was reestablished via alternate channels, authorities responded in an abundance of caution. The aircraft was cleared and returned to the gate for inspection.’
A Port Authority spokeswoman said the plane ‘was inspected and cleared with no security threat’, the Post reports.
