Boston – Two fighter jets were scrambled Wednesday to escort a London-to-Washington flight to an emergency landing in Boston after a disturbance in which passengers said a woman in a jogging suit paced up and down the aisle, peppering her incoherent mutterings with the word “Pakistan.”
The federal official for Boston’s Logan International Airport said there was no indication of terrorism, but passengers said they were unnerved by the woman and by the military response, just a week after authorities in London said they foiled a terror plot to blow up flights to the U.S.
“It was a harrowing two hours,” said Antony Nash, 31, who was on his way home to San Diego and was seated near the woman.
“I noticed F-15s next to the plane. I said, ‘Oh, my God.’ And then we saw the emergency vehicles” on the tarmac,” Nash said.
Gov. Mitt Romney said the 59-year-old Vermont woman became so claustrophobic and upset that she needed to be restrained.
The FBI in Boston said the woman, a U.S. citizen, was arrested on charges of interfering with a flight crew.
Passengers said two plainclothes men on board and flight attendants ran up the aisle and tackled the petite woman, slamming her into the bathroom door, throwing her to the ground and putting her in handcuffs, passengers said.
The disturbance was enough of a concern that the pilot declared an emergency, which activated two fighter jets to escort the plane into Logan, said George Naccara, security director for the Transportation Security Administration for Massachusetts’ airports.
Two F-15s were sent from Otis Air National Guard Base on Cape Cod to escort the airliner, said Master Sgt. Anthony Hill, spokesman for the North American Aerospace Defense Command in Colorado Springs. He said the fighter pilots can intercept, shadow or escort commercial aircraft and, if ordered, shoot down an aircraft deemed to be a threat.
State police and federal agencies took control of the plane after it landed.
Passengers were taken off the plane, put on a bus and taken to a terminal to be interviewed, Naccara said. Their luggage was spread out on the tarmac, where it was rechecked by security officials and trained dogs.
Joan Bartko, of Manassas, Va., said all passengers on the plane did as they were told.
“It was sort of surreal,” she said. “You just know the best thing to do is stay calm.”
Officials expected the passengers would be allowed onto another flight to Washington later Wednesday.
Nash said he noticed that the woman’s oversized handbag appeared to contain items such as lotion that he believed should not have been allowed on the plane since the new safety regulations were put in place after last week’s terror plot revelations.
Romney said a search of the woman’s bag turned up matches and a gelatin-like substance, which he did not define, but there was no indication the items were related to terrorism. Naccara said he did not believe any items she was carrying were the cause of the emergency.
