take-off was taken seriously by US officials at New York's John F. Kennedy International Airport on Monday night.

The bomb threat on American Airlines' evening flight from JFK saw New York Police and Port Authority officials comb the aircraft for several hours before determining that it was safe enough to fly.

The 757 aircraft was almost fully booked with 164 of the 175 seats occupied and had passengers and cargo on board at 4.30 p.m. when the New York Port Authority received a telephone call of a security threat on board.

Around the same time, a senior flight attendant noticed that strips of the plane's metal flooring were up in places and wires were exposed.

The attendant summoned the pilot who agreed that the situation looked unusual and called in the maintenance department.

Bomb scare Boarding was halted as New York Police and the Port Authority then arrived with news of the threatening call and demanded a thorough search of the aircraft.

Passengers who had taken their seats were forced to disembark with their belongings and all cargo was unloaded.

An American Airlines spokesman yesterday noted that scare calls frequently occur at airports and pointed out that this one "was taken seriously'' by the New York Port Authority.

"The Port Authority felt that this caller had sufficient knowledge of the aircraft and flight details to consider it a serious threat to security,'' said spokesman John Hotard.

"Calls come in all the time and sometimes they can tell quite easily that it is just a scare,'' he added.

"They carried out a thorough search and unloaded all passengers, cargo, and bags. But they found nothing.'' While Mr. Hotard was unable to reveal what the threatening caller said, Austin Woods, President of the Bermuda Olympic Association and a passenger on the flight, offered more specific information.

"I was sitting right next to the flight attendant who made the discovery about all the strips being up,'' he said.

"I understand that the caller said the Bermuda plane would be in the air for 45 minutes before blowing up and that one of the passengers had the bomb strapped to them.

"The flight attendant pointed out that there are two types of scares, negative and positive,'' he said.

"Negative bomb scares are where people call and say a plane is going to go up but they cannot give any further details like, the airline and destination.

"And with a positive bomb scare the caller knows details like the flight number, where it is from, and what time it will depart,'' he added.

Mr. Woods noted that the concern of officials was heightened because the damaged floor strips were detected around the same time as the bomb threat call was received.

"When that happened bells went off,'' he said.

A 10 p.m. curfew at the Bermuda International Airport for runway construction added to the delay passengers suffered.

The lengthy security investigation meant the flight would have landed in Bermuda well after 10 p.m. so the airline put the passengers in a nearby hotel for the night.

The passengers returned to the airport to reboard the plane at 6 a.m.

yesterday for the flight back to Bermuda.

Passengers praised the airline's handling of the incident.

"Although I was inconvenienced,'' said Mr. Woods, "in the long run it was in the best interest. I think the airline followed precautions that were in our best interest.'' Corporation of Hamilton secretary Roger Sherratt, who was also a passenger on the flight, said: "While I don't like getting up at four o'clock in the morning to catch a flight, I would rather do that then never get up again.

"There was obviously a serious situation, judging from the number of Police that were brought in, but they handled it very well and we never felt any panic.''