Woman Held in Threat to Airplane

A woman was arrested after a threat was phoned in against a Southwest Airlines flight that was preparing for takeoff from Ontario International Airport, police said Saturday.

The threat turned out to be a hoax, said police Det. Al Parra.

The person alleged to have made the call, Hillary Garcia, 30, was arrested at her Whittier home and taken into custody by FBI agents, Parra said.

Flight 936 was to depart Friday at 2:45 p.m., Parra said. The flight, with about 120 passengers aboard, was to fly to San Jose and then on to Portland, Ore.

A call was made to the airline’s toll-free reservation number about the same time the flight was supposed to leave. The plane had not yet departed from the gate when the call came in, Parra said.

“The caller said, ‘I dropped off my boyfriend. In a canister, he has a manufactured device,’ ” Parra said. “The call was taken very seriously.”

Southwest officials immediately notified airport police, Parra said.

Police, fire officials, FBI agents and a bomb squad arrived at the airport and the passengers were taken off the plane, Parra said.

Officials searched the plane and all the carry-on and checked baggage. All the passengers were interviewed and nothing harmful was located, Parra said.

About six hours later, “everyone was loaded back on the plane and the plane took off without incident,” he said.

Officials investigated the initial call and linked it to Garcia.

Investigators determined that the threat was a hoax and apparently was the result of a dispute between Garcia and her boyfriend, Parra said.

However, it was not immediately clear if the boyfriend was on the plane. Parra said he did not know if he had been located or questioned.

Garcia was being held at the San Bernardino County sheriff’s Central Booking Facility, Parra said. Bail was not immediately set.

FBI spokesman Ray Escudero said Garcia faces a charge of making a threat against the airline, a federal offense. She likely will be arraigned Monday.

“Even though it’s a hoax, the mere fact of making a threat--it is a federal offense,” Escudero said. “The threat was made.”

The FBI was continuing to investigate, he said.

A spokeswoman for Southwest could not be reached late Saturday.