A 12:19 p.m. email Thursday of a bomb threat at Bradford Regional Airport proved to be a hoax.
Lewis Run-based state police, whose barracks are next door on Airport Road, responded immediately and canvassed the area, finding no threat.
“This incident was determined to be a suspected ‘swatting’ incident and is still under investigation,” police said. The Oxford Dictionary defines swatting as such: “The action or practice of making a prank call to emergency services in an attempt to bring about the dispatch of a large number of armed police officers to a particular address.”
Lewis Run barracks commander Sgt. James Reed said Bradford Airport was not alone in Thursday’s hoax.
“It was a bunch of airports.” All of them were hoaxes. “Hopefully they can track these people down who are making these calls,” Reed said.
Alicia Dankesreiter, Bradford Airport manager, explained she was emailed by the “swatter” at 12:19 p.m., but wasn’t at her desk and didn’t see it until about 12:35 p.m.
“We went through the protocols and it was all over by 1 o’clock in the afternoon,” she said. “The email was very vague. They asked for a certain amount of money sent to a certain place.”
With a laugh, she said, “State police have an excellent response time. We are well protected up here between the National Guard (Readiness Center) and the state police.”
Dankesreiter said her initial thought was that it wasn’t a credible threat, but protocol was followed and state police were thorough in their search.
“It wasn’t just us,” she added, referring to Bradford Airport. “It was us and three other airports in Pennsylvania and three in Mississippi. One of the ones in Mississippi was Gulfport and they did evacuate their terminal. It did not disrupt us.”
She’s been in the business about 20 years, and said this was her first, and hopefully last, incident of this kind.
“I talked to my staff about ‘see something, say something.’ To watch out for strange people or cars, if you see someone where they’re not supposed to be,” she added. And the Transportation Security Administration staff at the airport do the same thing.
Incidents like this can and do come from anywhere.
A 17-year-old boy from Monroe County was arrested in May for at least nine calls to places across the country, including Bend, Ore. A 20-year-old Washington State man was arrested in March for making at least 20 in the U.S. — including to Pennsylvania and into Canada, the Associated Press reported.
The FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Force arrested a juvenile in West Covina, Calif., earlier this week who was part of an online swatting ring, responsible for making a series of calls to religious, educational and public institutions in the U.S.
Schools, airports and colleges are frequent targets.
