A Spirit Airlines flight was disrupted Thursday morning after a reported bomb threat and KDKA Radio’s Larry Richert was on that flight!
What's it like being on a plane when a bomb threat is reported?
Richert called into Colin Dunlap’s show just after 4 p.m., only moments after getting his phone back.
So, what happened?
Larry booked a non-stop to the Tampa area so he can do a broadcast from Bradenton, Florida Friday morning.
The plane pulled away from the gate at 9:30 a.m. but shortly after, the plane came to a complete stop, with no other planes around.
He says they sat for 90 minutes without any information or movement.
Then, Allegheny County Police pulled up to the plane and took a man into custody, one row back from Larry.
“In his mid-30s and he didn’t give them any grief,” said Richert. “Six police officers came on the plane.”
A woman saw a text before the plane left the gate from the man that said, “I’m on board with my bombs and drugs.”
The woman took a picture of his screen and called the flight attendant.
After that, police announced that everyone had to depart the plane and leave their electronic devices (cell phones).
“They put us on buses, which took forever,” said Larry. “They took us to the fire rescue garage first where we didn’t have access to bathrooms until one firefighter said ‘this is ridiculous, we got to let these people use the restrooms.’ Put us on buses again, carted us all the way to the end of the international terminal in gate 59. Did a detailed search of each of us, physically, just short of cavity searches, seriously. It took two hours for them to do that.”
And during that time, no one had access to a phone.
Larry says County Police, firefighters and even military were on the scene and the passengers were left in the dark the whole time.
“As frustrating and agonizing as its been, the fact is everybody was doing their job, they have to but this one jerkoff doing a text, clearly it appears it was just a joke to a friend, but somebody saw it and reported it,” said a frustrated Larry.
Larry wasn’t the only one who was affected.
He says a youth football team from the Hill District, the Rebels, are going to Tampa for a championship game in Florida missed their connecting flight.
Larry says fortunately no one was hurt but it wasn’t fun feeling “completely helpless and like you’re being held hostage.”
As for what next? Larry is hoping to leave the airport by 7 or 7:30 p.m. Thursday and be on the air early Friday beginning at 5:30.