Aug. 16 (Bloomberg) -- A United Airlines flight from London to Washington was diverted to Boston today because a female passenger became unruly, a federal spokesman said.

``She said she was very claustrophobic and said she had an adverse reaction to something,'' George Naccara, federal security director for the U.S. Transportation Security Administration at Logan Airport in Boston, said in an interview.

The passenger is a 60-year-old U.S. citizen, and the incident has ``no known connection to terrorism,'' said Federal Bureau of Investigation spokeswoman Gail Marcinkiewicz.

Flight 923, a Boeing 767 with 12 crew members, landed at Boston's Logan International Airport rather than the plane's original destination of Dulles International Airport outside Washington. All 182 passengers on the plane were asked to get off, Naccara said.

The woman will probably be charged with criminal violations tomorrow, said U.S. attorney Michael Sullivan and FBI Special Agent In Charge Kenneth Kaiser in a joint statement. They didn't identify her or say what violations she would be charged with. She has been arrested and will be held tonight, they said.

State police and FBI officials also questioned some other passengers, the flight crew and the pilot, Naccara said. A second passenger was taken into custody initially, but was found not to be suspicious and was released, he said.

Passengers said the woman was pacing the aisles repeatedly during the flight. Antony Nash of San Diego, who was seated two rows from the back of the plane, said the woman was ``acting very erratically, babbling to herself, walking in a weird way.''

`Panic Attack'

The woman said she was carrying English money, that her daughter had followed the Grateful Dead and that she had spent time in Pakistan, said Nash, 31. Another passenger, Giles Peters of Gloucester, England, said the woman said she needed water.

``The lady had a panic attack,'' said Vickie Robinson, 47, a schoolteacher from Martinsburg, West Virginia. ``She looked like something was wrong with her.''

After her final trip toward the bathrooms in the back of the plane, two men in plainclothes placed her in handcuffs and put her in a seat in the back row, sitting on each side of her as she yelled, Nash said.

Boston's Channel 7, an NBC affiliate, reported that the woman had a screwdriver, Vaseline and a note referencing the al- Qaeda terrorist group. Naccara said she wasn't carrying any of these items.

Yolanda Clark, a TSA spokeswoman, said the woman was carrying hand cream and matches.

Military Escort

Two F-15 fighter jets escorted the plane to Logan, said Master Sergeant Anthony Hill, a spokesman for the North American Aerospace Defense Command. The jets, based at Otis Air National Guard Base in Cape Cod, Massachusetts, accompanied the plane in case there were terrorists on board, he said.

United Flight 923 left London at 7:59 a.m. today (2:59 a.m. New York time) and was scheduled to arrive at Dulles at 11:10 a.m. New York time. The pilot declared ``a security emergency'' and decided at 9:30 a.m. to divert the aircraft to Boston after consulting air traffic controllers, United spokesman Brandon Borrman said.

Once the passengers left the plane in Boston, they and their luggage were re-screened, Clark said. Dogs sniffed the bags and the aircraft for explosives and didn't find any. These inspection procedures are standard for diverted flights, she said.

Hill said the military learned that the flight was being diverted to Boston by listening in on the pilot's communications via the Domestic Events Network system, which links the Pentagon and the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration.

United, a unit of UAL Corp., is the world's second-largest airline.

To contact the reporter on this story: Neil Roland in Washington at nroland@bloomberg.net.

Last Updated: August 16, 2006 18:10 EDT