Teen Girl Arrested After American Airlines Twitter Hoax

A 14-year old girl has been arrested after sending a hoax tweet to American Airlines, describing herself as a member of Al-Qaeda.

Twitter Hoax Results in Arrest

The girl’s tweet made headlines when American responded that they had send her information to the FBI – and a string of pleas by the girl ensued.

The girl, using the now-suspended Twitter handle queendemetriax_ sent out the joke/hoax on April 13th, which read, “hello my name’s Ibrahim and I’m from Afghanistan. I’m part of Al Qaida and on June 1st I’m gonna do something really big bye“

Apparently to the girl’s surprise, the airline responded that they did not find the joke funny, “Sarah, we take these threats very seriously. Your IP address and details will be forwarded to security and the FBI.“

After American’s response, the girl sent out a series of panicked tweets. The graphic below has been circulating showing the entire thread.

On Monday, police in Rotterdam had announced that the girl was a 14-year old who had been arrested in connection to the threat.

Dutch girl (14) from Rotterdam arrested after American Airlines threat. Investigation continues. #Rotterdam #Police #Force @americanair

— Politie Rotterdam eo (@Politie_Rdam) April 14, 2014

American Airlines has since deleted the tweet, telling Huff Post that “The safety of our passengers and crew is our number one priority. We take security matters very seriously and work with authorities on a case-by-case basis.” Regarding their decision to delete the tweet, they replied, “Regarding [Sarah’s] tweet, we removed it after it had been addressed in order to be able to focus on our customers.”

Bottom Line

In April of 2014, a Dutch teenage girl was arrested for sending a Tweet to American Airlines which implied she was a terrorist from Afghanistan who was planning an attack. The airline made the choice to delete the Tweet after the incident, yet graphics of the interaction can still be found online.