<i>"Hi Jack!" </i> I Was Just Saying Hello!

A simple greeting to a man named Jack caused emergency preparations at a suburban Detroit airport.

“There was a guy on the plane named Jack, and someone walked in and said, `Hi, Jack,”' police Lt. Rick Crigger said. “The mike just happened to be open and the tower heard it.”

Thinking someone was highjacking the corporate jet Monday, Oakland International Airport tower officials called the Waterford police. The airport is about 30 miles northwest of Detroit.

“We called in a whole additional shift,” Crigger told The Oakland Press. “We called in the Oakland County Sheriff's Department SWAT team.”

The FBI and other federal authorities also were called to prepare while tower officials called for the plane to return to the tower.

“The pilot got off the plane and we checked his identification to make sure he was who he said he was,” Police Chief John B. Dean said. “Then I boarded the plane to make sure everything was OK.”

The false alarm proved the emergency system worked, Dean said.

“I like false alarms like that,” Dean said. “They are good for training purposes. Nobody was hurt and they were just delayed a few minutes.”

Once it was over, they were also able to laugh about it.

“They'll probably pass a rule that no one named Jack can ever be hired in aviation again,” said Waterford Capt. Chuck Jehle.