Three packed passenger jets were searched at Kennedy Airport yesterday after an anonymous phone caller claimed there were Islamic hijackers aboard armed with explosives — but it was nothing but a hoax, law-enforcement sources said.
The jets, American Airlines flights 24 and 846, and Finnair Flight 5, were instructed to park in a remote part of the airport known as “the hijacker site” for security inspections after they landed on schedule at about 3:30 p.m., the sources said.
Police gave them a 90-minute once-over before declaring the call a hoax.
Two other US airports, including one in San Antonio, received similar bogus calls, the sources said.
The caller, who spoke to Kennedy’s Port Authority Police desk, from an unidentified man, said he got the information from a member of the unnamed Muslim terrorist group.
He claimed that the hijackers were hiding in the wheel wells of the plane and were wearing gas masks, one law-enforcement source said.
The pilots reported no indications that anything was wrong.
Nevertheless, a “multi-agency mobilization” was organized to check out the planes, a source said.
A PA police officer came aboard one of the American flights and announced there was a threat that had to be checked out, a passenger said.
Additional reporting by Josh Margolin, C.J. Sullivan and Larry Celona