Plane set for Florida-Kentucky flight deplanes due to bomb threat

An Allegiant Air jet scheduled to take off from Pinellas County, Florida, on Friday deplaned onto the runway after a flight attendant found a written bomb threat.

Allegiant Flight 2006, the plane that was set to leave St. Pete-Clearwater International for Boone County, Kentucky, was on the taxiway at around 4:30 p.m. when the alarm went out. The Florida airport was closed as local law enforcement investigated, the Federal Aviation Administration said.

Earlier in the day, an Allegiant plane had arrived at St. Petersburg from Boone County’s Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International Airport. Using the same plane, Flight 2006 was due to complete the round trip between the two airports, Pinellas County Sheriff Bob Gualtieri said in a press conference.

As the plane got ready to hit the runway and leave, a flight attendant found the bomb note on the door of the rear lavatory. The flight attendant let the pilot know, and the plane was stopped so the roughly 170 passengers could be evacuated, Sheriff Gualtieri said.

“The safety of our passengers and crew is always our priority. Because this is an active investigation, we must defer to law enforcement for additional information,” Allegiant said in a statement, according to Tampa’s WTVT.

Passenger Jim Seay told the TV station, “Everyone did move off the plane extremely fast. Emergency exits were not used. Everybody went out the regular entryway, and as soon as you were off the plane there was an expedited effort to move people away from the plane.”

The threat was not specific to Flight 2006, but instead threatened all the Allegiant planes at St. Pete-Clearwater, Sheriff Gualtieri said. The Florida facility is an operating base for Allegiant Air.

Passengers on at least six planes were evacuated, and the Florida airport was searched with bomb dogs. The sheriff’s office did not find any evidence of explosive devices at the scene.

As of Saturday, law enforcement was still searching for the suspect who made the threat. They are considering passengers, potential passengers and the crew of Flight 2006, Sheriff Gualtieri said.

The airport did reopen, and Allegiant flew Flight 2006 to Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International Airport successfully Saturday morning.