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Teen’s Twitter prank gives her a panic attack — and 30K new followers

“Sarah” wanted to be famous, but not Osama bin Laden famous. 

A troublemaker claiming to be a teenage girl got the scare of a lifetime online after tweeting a terror threat to a major airline, which in turn threatened to report the threat to the FBI.

The tweeter, under the username “Sarah,” went on a full-scale Twitter freak-out, fearing the feds might come knocking — and more importantly, saying she was afraid her parents might make her shut down her beloved Twitter account. 

“I always wanted to be famous,” Sarah tweeted. “But I meant like Demi Lovato famous, not Osama bin laden famous.”

The trouble for Sarah came Sunday, after she thought it would be a hoot to tweet a threat from her @QueenDemetriax account to attack a plane.

“@AmericanAir. hello my name’s Ibrahim and I’m from Afghanistan. I’m part of Al Qaida and on June 1st I’m gonna do something really big bye.”

The reply from American Airlines made it clear that the company was not amused.

“@QueenDemetriax_Sarah, we take these threats very seriously. Your IP address and details will be forwarded to security and the FBI.” 

Oops, Sarah seemed to quickly realize the prank went way too far. The tweeter soon had the mother of all online meltdowns, writing:

“@AmericanAir omfg I was kidding.”

https://twitter.com/QueenDemetriax_/status/455393860093739008

“@AmericanAir I’m so sorry I’m scared now.” 

“I’m not gonna tell my parents, they’ll tell me to delete my acc omg that would be the end of my life.”

https://twitter.com/QueenDemetriax_/status/455378153058603009

Sarah, who claims to be a Demi Lovato fan from the Netherlands, first tried to claim a friend hijacked her account.

But by the end of the string of apologies, Sarah saw a silver lining by realizing the Twitter blunder had attracted thousands of new fans.

“Wow bc of this I gained 1k followers,” Sarah tweeted, eventually ending the day with nearly 30,000 new followers.

https://twitter.com/QueenDemetriax_/status/455375946699522048

It was unclear if American Airlines actually forwarded the tweet to the feds.

The company tweet was quickly deleted, but not before it was re-tweeted thousands of times. 

A company spokeswoman, Dori Alvarez, declined to comment in detail.

“At American, the safety of our passengers and crew is our number-one priority,” Alvarez said. “We take security matters very seriously and work with authorities on a case-by-case basis.”

A Twitter spokesman, Nu Wexler, also declined to comment on the controversy.

“We do not comment on individual accounts for privacy and security reasons,” Wexler said.

But on his own Twitter account, Wexler said the airline was merely bluffing.

“Only law enforcement can request private information about Twitter accounts,” Wexler tweeted.