Woman's Claim of Implanted Device Diverts Plane

Authorities say there was never a threat to safety
By Matt Cantor,  Newser Staff
Posted May 22, 2012 4:31 PM CDT
Woman's Claim of Implanted Device Diverts Plane
In this July 19, 2011, file photo, baggage is unloaded from a U.S. Airways jet.   (AP Photo/Elise Amendola, File)

A US Airways flight from Paris to North Carolina was diverted to Maine after a woman claimed to have a device implanted in her body. Authorities have since determined that she posed "basically no threat," but the flight was halted "out of an abundance of caution," according to the TSA. The woman didn't threaten the flight, officials say; she simply gave the flight crew a note alerting them to the purported device.

The woman appeared anxious and sweaty, said a passenger, who tells CNN that that he "had briefly noticed her in the back of the plane being a weirdo." The crew told passengers the plane had to land in Bangor because of strong headwinds. After landing, the pilot apologized for misleading those aboard. The woman, in her mid-twenties to mid-thirties, is a French citizen and Cameroon native. She had no recent surgical scars or incisions, authorities said. She was taken off the plane in handcuffs. (More US Airways stories.)

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