FBI agents were investigating the threats made online which appeared to be hoax but had eventually affected a number of domestic airline flights. Though the officials had determined that public safety had faced no risk, hundreds of passengers had to suffer from inconvenience on Sunday.
Two of the planes that landed at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport had to be evacuated with its passengers. One flight from Delta Air Lines which originally had the Los Angeles-Orlando, Florida route had to be diverted instead to Dallas.
On Monday at around 9 p.m., passengers from Flight 321 at Palm Beach, Florida had to be taken while troopers and their dogs searched the aircraft and looked into around 100 luggages.
While the searches only showed up nothing, the incidents only prove how powerful a person can be to cause a lot of trouble on social media.
More of these threats, which are sent through Twitter, have targeted other flights on Tuesday with one user sending a tweet to American Airlines, Southwest Airlines and Delta Air Lines that their planes have a bomb on board. So far, the tweets didn't lead the airlines to announce a flight disruption.
The Twitter account of the user was reportedly suspended. Two of the mentioned flights in the tweet have safely landed as scheduled after the bomb threats were posted online. One had to go en route, two have landed hours prior to the threat, and one flight has yet to depart from San Francisco.
One tweet reads, "@AmericanAir No, There is a bomb on Flight 1192, We Are ISIS, we will (expletive) you guys up, #ISIS."
According to Laura Eimiller, FBI spokeswoman, hoax threats which targeted specific airlines are not entirely rare with suspects eventually getting prosecuted. In the past, hoaxers would use the telephone to send similar threats.
Now, pranksters and terrorists have learned that creating chaos can be easily achieved through Twitter. Hoax threats and the problem it brings seemed to be growing.
"We're seeing these new threats," said Glen Winn, former head of security at United Airlines and Northwest Airlines. "In terms of the quantity of online threats we're seeing now, you just haven't seen it."
There was no response from Twitter when it was asked for a comment.
The FBI is looking into online "footprints" that are left by people who allegedly sent the threats.
"That's actually what the FBI is doing," said Jeff Price, associate professor of aviation management at Denver's Metropolitan State University. "You leave an address footprint wherever you go, and those can be followed."
