ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Saturday, August 24, 1996 TAG: 9608260057
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-3 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: RICHMOND
SOURCE: Associated Press
A frustrated air traveler accused of making a comment about bombing a plane escaped prosecution Friday but said she paid for her mistake nonetheless.
``It's been a hellacious two weeks,'' Patsy Jane Hansel of Williamsburg said after federal prosecutors dropped a felony charge against her Friday. ``My professional reputation, I don't know if I'll ever get that back.''
Hansel, 47, is county librarian for James City County.
The FBI arrested her Aug. 7 and charged her with giving false information about a bomb on an aircraft. The federal charge carries a maximum five-year prison sentence.
Hansel submitted a letter expressing regret in exchange for dismissal of the felony charge, the U.S. attorney's office said. She had been scheduled to appear Friday morning before U.S. Magistrate David Lowe.
The charge stemmed from a remark Hansel made when she and her husband, James Govern, were flying to Seattle. Bad weather made it impossible to make their USAir connecting flight in Charlotte, N.C.
A ticket agent at Richmond International Airport rerouted the couple to an American Airlines flight. Their luggage remained aboard the USAir jet, Hansel said.
For security reasons, American Airlines refused to let the couple board without luggage, according to an affidavit filed by the FBI.
According to the affidavit, Hansel turned to her husband and said: ``This is the way we planned it. That we fly American, that our bags go on USAir, and that the bomb in our bags can blow up their airplane. Now do you understand?''
Hansel denied saying, ``This is the way we planned it.''
She said she told her husband: ``They think we could have arranged this so that our baggage with a bomb would go out on one airline and we could go out on another.''
Hansel said the comment ``wasn't a joke or a threat. It was explaining the situation to my husband.'' She said airport personnel who heard her overreacted.
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