A Southwest Airline flight was diverted due to a possible bomb threat on Monday.
According to the FBI, Flight 2675 from Los Angeles to Austin, Texas was diverted to Phoenix after authorities received a threat over the phone. Laura Eimiller of the FBI's Los Angeles field office said the flight left Los Angeles International Airport at 2:12 p.m. Shorlty after, someone called in a bomb threat, the Associated Press reports.
"The FBI and law enforcement partners are responding to conduct an investigation of the aircraft, as well as to determine the person or persons responsible for the threat," Eimiller said in a statement according to the Associated Press.
As a precaution, F-16 fighter jets were called out of Davis-Monthan Air Force Base in Tucson to escort the flight as it was diverted to Sky Harbor, NORAD officials told AP.
The Southwest flight landed safely at Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport at roughly 3 p.m. Phoenix police were called in to inspect the plane after it landed.
Sgt. Steve Martos, a Phoenix police spokesman told AP that all of the plane's crew members and the 143 passengers got off the plane and were placed on buses. The passengers were then interviewed by authorities. The passengers may know something about the threat.
Bomb Squads and police dogs were investigating the plane on Monday night. According to Sky Harbor spokeswoman Julie Rodriguez, the plane was kept in an isolated part of the airport tarmac and wasn't near terminals as it was being inspected.
Other flights were affected by the incident as they were only able to take off and land on the airport's two south runways. Some arrival flights were delayed.
According to Martos, it would probably take "a couple hours" for police bomb squad technicians and bomb-sniffing police dogs to investigate the plane completely.
The passengers on the flight were accommodated on other flights to Austin by Southwest.
This article is copyrighted by Travelers Today, the travel news leader