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Fears that Osama Bin Laden's followers want payback for his execution fueled a nationwide wave of jitters - causing evacuations, a flight diversion and higher blood pressure.

Part of Lincoln Hospital in the Bronx and a nearby apartment building were evacuated early Monday after the discovery of a parked 1998 Dodge Caravan running for hours with 24 pipelike devices inside.

Police used a robot to blow out the vehicle's windows before giving the allclear just before 1 a.m.

Investigators determined that the pipes were harmless foam tubes used to protect glass. The Caravan's driver, a windshield installer, had abandoned his vehicle to deal with a severe asthma attack and left the tubes behind.

Late Sunday, a Yemeni man who had lived in New York was tackled by passengers on an American Airlines flight to California when he began pounding on the cockpit door about 30 minutes before landing.

The man, Rageh Almurisi, 28, may have thought it was a rest room. "He's not a terrorist, trust me," said his cousin Rageh Almoraissi, 29, who owns a store in Vallejo, Calif. "You don't knock on a door as a terrorist act. I think it was just a misunderstanding," he added, saying that his cousin has a math degree and loves America.

Almurisi tried the handle of the locked cockpit, and when a flight attendant told him the bathroom was to his left, he rammed the door with his shoulder and "kept yelling and pushing," according to an FBI affidavit.

He was tackled by passengers, including a retired Secret Service agent and a former California cop, and will be charged with interfering with a flight crew.

The cousin said he was sure Almurisi had no evil intent.

"If you don't get radicalized in Yemen, you're not going to get radicalized," Almoraissi said. "He's a really nice guy, always happy and smiling. He loves it here."

Almurisi was moving to California after living in New York for a year with his brother Mohammed, a cabbie who moved back to Yemen.

The cousin said Almurisi is not very worldly. "The first time he came here, the first Asian guy he saw, he asked him if he was related to Jackie Chan. He's not that sophisticated," said Almoraissi.

If Almurisi fell victim to a misunderstanding, it would be the second time for his family.

A distant relative, Hezem Almurisi, was briefly detained last August because his traveling companion on a Chicago-to-Amsterdam flight packed a cell phone taped to a Pepto-Bismol bottle, three cell phones taped together, watches taped together and three large knives. "It was stupid," Almoraissi said. "He was separating everything people asked him to send to Yemen by taping them together based on who was supposed to get what."

The inflight scuffle was the most dramatic of four airline incidents as passengers and crews hypervigilant for Al Qaeda reprisals were quick to raise alarms. These included the following:

- A 34-year-old man tried to leave a Continental Airlines flight from Houston to Chicago on Sunday by opening the cabin door in midair and was wrestled down.

The man declared he needed to get off the plane. "He said he had a rough Mother's Day," said passenger Tony Harris, who choked the man into unconsciousness.

- A Delta flight from Detroit to San Diego on Sunday made an emergency landing in New Mexico after a note about a bomb - but no actual bomb - was found in a lavatory.

- On Friday, an imam and a professor of Arabic heading to a conference on Islamophobia were kicked off an Atlantic Southeast Airlines flight in Memphis because the pilot refused to carry them.

The FBI and the Homeland Security Department issued a warning to law enforcement agencies last night about the possibility of a bomb or an improvised explosive device attack. While the warning was not prompted by any specific threat, officials fear a lone wolf could seek revenge for Bin Laden's death.

With Rocco Parascandola

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