Spooked By A Cellphone
Caption of Picture: An Alaska Airlines 737 sits on the center runway at Sea-Tac Airport after an unclaimed object was discovered on Thursday, Oct. 4, 2007.
SEATAC – A cell phone is to blame for an emergency that caused passengers to disembark from an Alaska Airlines plane while it was still on the runway at Sea-Tac Airport Thursday morning.
Flight 393 landed at 11:41 a.m. The 737-400 had 104 passengers and five crew members were on board, but they were off-loaded onto the tarmac about 20 minutes after landing. They were taken to the terminal on buses.
Airport spokesperson Perry Cooper said the pilot reported to the tower that there was an unclaimed object that was causing concern. It turns out a passenger had woken up and ended up bumping his or her foot against something that appeared to be a cell phone, but looked like it had been taken apart and reassembled.
The passenger told the flight crew, who then signaled the emergency.
After an FBI sweep of the plane, it turns out the device was, in fact, a cell phone.
The airport cleared the emergency at about 12:30 p.m. Some flights were delayed as a result.