A bomb threat involving an arriving passenger jet froze all takeoffs and landings at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport for 20 minutes Sunday afternoon while the FBI investigated. No explosives were found aboard US Airways flight 2596 from Dayton, Ohio, which was rerouted to a secure landing area at Reagan after a person made threatening comments at a ticket counter in Dayton.
All 44 passengers aboard the flight, as well as the crew members, were safe but detained by the FBI and airport personnel for questioning.
The flight was going as planned until Reagan got notice of “suspicious activity” less than 30 minutes before the scheduled landing, said Courtney Mickalonis, a spokeswoman for the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority.
After removing passengers on buses, FBI bomb experts swept the plane but found no explosives. The incident was officially cleared at 4:39 p.m.
Mickalonis said there was no way to know how many planes at Reagan were affected by the 20-minute flight ban. “That’s not something we track in real time,” she said, adding that there are relatively few flights midday.
The person who made the threatening remarks is in custody and is being investigated, the FBI confirmed.
“The plane was closer to Reagan National at the time the threat was received, prompting officials to let the plane proceed,” said Supervisory Special Agent Katherine Schweit, of the FBI’s Washington office.
The FBI, Transportation Security Administration and other agencies worked together. An FBI spokesman based in Dayton declined to comment further.
Linda Hughes, a spokeswoman for Dayton International Airport, was not aware of any delays or cancellations at Dayton related to the bomb threat.
“Anytime anyone in the airport uses the b-word, it’s always taken very seriously. We followed up on it, followed procedures. It’s not a joking matter,” Hughes said.
She did not know what prompted the threat or exactly what the person said.
Four flights depart from Dayton and arrive at Reagan each day, all carried by US Airways, Hughes said. Dayton also dispatches three flights to Baltimore/Washington Thurgood Marshall International Airport via AirTran Airways, and four flights to Washington Dulles International Airport through United Express.
About 102,000 passenger flights arrived and departed from Dayton International Airport in April, a 6 percent decrease in traffic over the same month in 2010. For US Airways, traffic decreased 5.1 percent to about 16,743 flights.
The airport hosts seven airlines. US Airways was its third-largest carrier in April, the most recent month that data was available.
