swatsquad

swatsquad

On Friday, December 26, a JetBlue flight landed at Long Beach Airport’s (LGB) Daugherty Field at 8:03PM after an apparent bomb threat was tweeted at the airline

“It was a threat that came in on Twitter, directed at a JetBlue flight,” said Perez-Harmison, LGB’s Public Affairs Specialist. “The authorities were there to investigate it once it arrived. There were dogs… and the authorities came out and cleared the plane before releasing it.”

The online threat was made from the now-deactivated account @SWATTINGsquad. While the situation is still under investigation, the threat has been speculated as a possible “swatting” prank, or the act of calling in a false emergency in an effort to deploy a bomb squad, SWAT team or other police unit to the prankster’s targeted area.

“There were reports that other airlines were also targeted,” said Perez-Harmison.

swatsquad2

The aircraft was already en route to Long Beach from Seattle, said Perez-Harmison, and caused another flight that was Oakland-bound to be delayed. However all operations were back to normal by 10:30PM.

“There’s no new information at this time,” said Perez-Harmison. “It’s still currently under investigation.”

Asia Morris is a Long Beach native covering arts and culture for the Long Beach Post. You can reach her @hugelandmass on Twitter and Instagram and at [email protected].