Alleged device on UPS cargo jet a hoax
Bomb-squad detectives who unloaded a UPS cargo plane grounded in Phoenix early Wednesday after threats of a dangerous package, instead found a box containing cabbage, fabric softener and bottled water.
The jet, on a flight from Los Angeles to Louisville, Ky., was ordered to land in Phoenix after UPS's 24-hour center received two threatening phone calls.
The first message said “a dangerous package was on board” a UPS plane. The caller gave a tracking number, which UPS officials used to locate the package. After the anonymous caller phoned again with the same tracking number and said the package contained a bomb, UPS ordered the plane it was on to make an emergency landing.
When the cargo jet had taxied to a cordoned-off area at the Phoenix airport, the pilot crawled out of a cockpit window and slid down the fuselage to the tarmac. Explosives experts with bomb-sniffing dogs later boarded the Boeing 757.
After the plane had been unloaded, the remaining UPS packages went back into circulation for delivery, said a spokesman for Sky Harbor International Airport in Phoenix.