NASHVILLE, Tenn. -- For a few hours in 2004, a nationwide terror scare played out in Nashville.

There was talk of a bomb on a plane, fighter jets swooped in, there was an emergency landing -- and all this while the president was in town.

One woman set it all into motion and never explained what happened until an interview with the Channel 4 I-Team.

That woman is Gay Wilson, the flight attendant who wrote a note that triggered the whole scare. She said everything you've heard about the threat was a lie.

Only three years after Sept. 11, 2001, American Airlines flight 306 -- bound for Boston -- made an emergency landing at Nashville International Airport May 27, 2004.

The reason was a note that read a bomb was on board, signed "live Saddam."

Fighter jets escorted the plane in, and on the ground was Air Force One, as then-President George W. Bush was visiting Nashville.

"She endangered over 129 people by what she chose to do," said prosecutor Sunny Koshy of the U.S. Attorney's Office.

After five years in prison, Wilson is finally answering questions.

When Channel 4 I-Team reporter Jeremy Finley asked Wilson if she planned on harming the president, she responded, "Absolutely not. I didn't even know he was in town."

"Did you plan on harming anyone on that flight?" asked Finley.

"Absolutely not," said Wilson.

But there was a note, and she admits to writing the note. She signed a confession. She pleaded guilty.

But Wilson said the attorney who represented her was later disbarred for both drug abuse and ineffectively representing multiple clients. That attorney, she said, advised her to plead guilty whether she was guilty or not, for fear of a longer sentence.

"I'm not a terrorist," Wilson said. "Never was, never have been."

Federal prosecutors said Wilson was spotted in the lavatory acting as if she discovered the note that read, "There is a bomb on board this flight to Boston, in cargo, live Saddam." They said the note was hidden in toilet paper and that Wilson later admitted writing it.

Wilson does admit writing the note but said it was not a threat -- rather, she said, it was a demonstration for a coworker of what a terrorist's note might look like.

"No, it was an example of how a terrorist would behave, as far as I knew," said Wilson.

She said she tucked that note in a magazine and forgot about it. A short time later, she learned the flight was making an emergency landing.

She said a fellow flight attendant took the note to the pilot.

Wilson said everything about her hiding the note in the bathroom was a lie.

"You think the flight attendants lied," said Finley.

"I don't think. I know," Wilson said. "That's why I'm doing this interview."

"Why would they lie? Why would they make something like this up?" asked Finley.

"They were false witnesses," Wilson said. "It was all about getting a conviction."

"This office and the FBI have plenty of work to do without creating cases," said Koshy.

As for the confession she wrote two days after the emergency landing, Wilson said she was told by the FBI that for even writing the note, she could get an automatic 20 years in prison. She said she panicked.

"They said they could make it easy, or they could make it hard on me if I didn't cooperate," said Wilson. "I pretty much wrote what they wanted me to write."

Koshy said Wilson had plenty of opportunities in court to make these revelations, but never did.

"She chose, as is her right, not to say anything about that," said Koshy. "She decided to plead guilty. We didn't make her."

Wilson's attorney, Ken Lawson, advised her to plea because of the serious time she was facing for the threat.

"I didn't do the plea because I wanted to. My attorney was wacko, you know, and giving me bad legal advice," Wilson said.

Lawson was disbarred after the trial, cited for botching several other cases, and ultimately sentenced to prison for abusing prescription drugs that he said clouded his judgment.

Wilson has been writing letters since her first day in prison to advocacy groups, innocence projects and lawmakers. None said they could help because of her guilty plea.

"I should have properly discarded the note. Did I? No, I didn't. And because I didn't, my life as I knew it changed completely," she said.

The flight attendants and Wilson's attorney didn't return Channel 4's repeated calls for comment.

Wilson's family wants to give the flight attendant union $25,000 in exchange for the flight attendants to take lie detector tests.