Germany-bound plane diverts to JFK due to bomb threat, officials say
NEW YORK -- Authorities say a Lufthansa flight has been diverted to New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport due to a bomb threat.
Port Authority spokesman Steve Coleman says Lufthansa Flight 441 was heading from Houston, Texas, to Frankfurt, Germany, Monday night when a threat was called in to the airline’s corporate headquarters in Cologne, Germany.
Coleman says the pilot was notified and chose to divert to JFK as a precaution. The plane was taken to a remote area of the airport where 530 passengers and crew were evacuated.
One passenger told CBS New York, “It’s definitely weird. This is – I’ve been flying pretty consistently for the past few years and this never happened before. So I guess, when I guess, one of the pilots announced a bomb threat, to me, it felt a bit surreal. It took me a little bit of time for that to actually sink in.”
Officials searched the plane. Coleman says nothing suspicious was found.
The flight has been rescheduled.
The incident did not impact flight operations at JFK.
Separately, an American Airlines flight heading from Charlotte, North Carolina to San Francisco was diverted to Phoenix due to a “mechanical issue” Monday night, the carrier said. Passengers were to be put on another plane to continue on to San Francisco.
