NEW YORK, NY (FOX 25 / MyFoxBoston.com) Newly released audio recordings detail a tense exchange between air traffic controllers and a furious American Airlines pilot who demanded answers when an emergency search was ordered for his jet.
American Airlines flight 24 had just landed in New York after a five hour flight from San Francisco. Instead of being given a gate number, the pilot was ordered to a quarantine area. Once in the area, emergency vehicles surrounded the plane.
The pilot began asking for answers from air traffic control at John F. Kennedy International Airport, but the controller told the pilot to call his company for information. When the pilot told the controller that his company was not answering, the controller responded by simply saying all the information they had at the moment was that the pilot's flight and another flight were to wait in the designated area.
"Okay, we're surrounded by emergency vehicles, there's a reason for this. Somebody's got to give us the reason or we are going to evacuate the aircraft... you've got 60 seconds," replied the pilot.
After the pilot threatened to evacuate the plane on the tarmac, the controller said that they did have the information and asked him to call a number. The pilot refused to call and demanded to hear the information over a frequency.
The pilot was finally notified that his plane was one of two mentioned in an anonymous threat.
Someone made an anonymous phone call claiming explosives were on American flight 24 and Finnair Flight 5 from Helsinki. Both flights were searched and no explosives were found.
