Passengers on an American Eagle plane that received a threat and later landed at LAX were safe after the incident was deemed “non-credible” by officials Tuesday morning.
The airport got a Transportation Security Administration notification of a phone threat made to a call center in Houston regarding the plane, said Officer Rob Pedregon, with the LAX police department.
The plane landed safely at Los Angeles International Airport and it was moved to a remote location where authorities surrounded the plane and were assessing the situation.
SWAT officers and a bomb-sniffing dog went inside to search the plane about 9:35 a.m., aerial video from Sky5 showed.
Los Angeles firefighters, who were staging nearby, arrived at the scene about 9:50 a.m. to help passengers get off the plane.
Passengers appeared to be searched and assessed after getting off the plane. A total of 71 people were on the plane, including 67 passengers and four crew members, according to LAX.
Passengers were then bussed by the airline to American Airline-leased terminals, the airport said.
The “non-credible” threat was reported at 8:37 a.m. against Flight 5931, Polly Tracey, a spokeswoman for American Airlines, told the Los Angeles Times.
The nature of the threat was not immediately clear, but the incident was also being investigated by the FBI according to the Times.
In a statement, the FBI said investigators are working to determine who was responsible for making the threat.
“While an assessment is always conducted following a threat, there is no known credible threat to the aircraft or passengers at this time,” the FBI statement read.
Flight 5931 was being operated by Compass Airlines and left Houston George Bush International Airport at 7:18 a.m., according to Flightaware.com, an air travel tracking website.
In a statement, American Airlines said LAX authorities were screening the flight “out of an abundance of caution.”
KTLA’s Jennifer Thang and Alberto Mendez contributed to this story.
