No charges for passenger who prompted La Guardia emergency landing

A passenger whose erratic behavior prompted pilots to make an emergency landing at La Guardia Airport on Saturday afternoon was not charged after the authorities determined that he “did not make a verbal threat” and was not carrying a suspicious item, a spokesman for the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey said. The man, who was not identified by the Port Authority Police Department, was briefly detained and questioned by the authorities, including the FBI, and then released, the spokesman, Thomas Topousis, said on Sunday. “The Port Authority Police Department determined there was no criminality,” Topousis said Sunday. Shortly before 3 p.m. on Saturday, a pilot of the plane, which was a Republic Airways aircraft operating as American Flight 4817, told workers at a control tower at La Guardia Airport that he was “declaring an emergency,” according to a recording posted on LiveATC.net. “We have a situation where a person, a suspicious person, has an item that looks like an explosive device,” the pilot says, according to the recording. The pilot then says that he is going to land. “We’re planning to turn off the runway, and then we will plan to evacuate,” he says, according to the recording. The pilot later says that crew members “don’t know what this person has,” adding, “Everyone else is scared on this aircraft.” After the plane landed, firefighters and police personnel converged on the aircraft, which had traveled from Indianapolis with about 78 passengers aboard. Passengers exited the plane safely, said a spokesman for the Federal Aviation Administration, Steve Kulm.<br/>