Woman gets note on plane: 'Time for everybody to die'

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A Christmas Eve flight from New York City to Portland, Maine, was delayed for more than two hours after a man suggesting "he was Jesus" gave a fellow passenger a note referring to the shedding of blood and that "it was time for everybody to die."

The man was taken into custody at gunpoint after questioning by police and U.S. Airways Express Flight 3068 was searched by bomb-sniffing dogs at LaGuardia Airport.

"He said he had AIDS, and the shedding of his blood and all our blood would cure all sickness," Tammy Budek, the woman originally handed the note, told the Portland Press-Herald. She said the message which brought her to tears suggested "he was Jesus and it was time for everybody to die."

"He was Jesus. God spoke to him. It was everyone's time," she quoted the note as saying, according to the Bangor Daily News. "He says, 'I need you to believe. Do you believe?'"

Budek, of Sharpsville, Pa., was on her way to visit family in Maine with her husband and two children. Authorities got involved after Budek passed the note along to a flight attendant.

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Alan Hicks, a spokesman for the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, said the man, who was not named but is said to be about 35 years old, was taken to an area hospital.

Another passenger, William Curtis of New York, said the man initially sat toward the front of the plane, near the pilot's cabin.

"He didn't want to move" when a woman came to claim her seat, Curtis told the paper.

The man eventually was seated in row 18 without creating a scene, but Budek said he "smiled the whole time" while being handcuffed and removed from the aircraft.

At Portland International Jetport, dozens were left waiting for passengers with few clues as to the reason for the delay.

Nancy Zerr of Lyman, Maine, received a cell-phone call from her daughter, Kelly Bowden, of Wilmington, N.C.

Zerr said her daughter's voice was shaking when she was told, "There's something going on, and there are guns."

Dale and Dianne Brown of Hartland, Maine, learned that Budek, their daughter, was the first recipient of the threatening note.

"She was quite upset. I was petrified," Dianne Brown said.

The Press-Herald says former Maine Gov. Angus King was also a passenger on the flight, but said the scenario "wasn't a big deal."

The incident is reminiscent of a U.S. Airways flight in November, as passengers handed notes to flight attendants, expressing concern about a half dozen Muslim imams said to be praying loudly and declaring anti-U.S. rhetoric regarding the war in Iraq and Saddam Hussein.