An American Airlines plane was diverted to Phoenix Sky Harbor Airport after a hacker tweeted that the flight had "explosives on-board," UPI reported. AA 362 had just taken off from Dallas Fort-Worth when it was forced to land in Phoenix before noon, American Airlines spokeswoman Michelle Mohr confirmed.
"It diverted to Phoenix due to a security related issue," Mohr said. "And the flight was met by authorities."
While inquiries about security issues and specific threats were declined to be identified or confirmed by both airport officials and FBI agents on the ground, the airline appeared to have responded to a tweet from the hacker Lizard Squad that named Sony Online Entertainment President John Smedley, who was on the flight.
"@AmericanAir We have been receiving reports that @j_smedley's plane #362 from DFW to SAN has explosives on-board, please look into this," a message on the group's Twitter feed read.
"The tweet came shortly after Sony's PlayStation Network went down, the target of a distributed denial-of-service attack, when the network was flooded with traffic and collapsed. Sony confirmed the network had been taken down by a DDoS attack, and had been restored without any customer data stolen," according to UPI.
"The Lizard Squad appeared to take credit for this too, tweeting that 'there are lizards in Sony's datacenter' and claimed to have 'planted the ISIS flag on @Sony's servers,' claiming a connection to the terrorist group acting in Syria and Iraq."
Meanwhile, the pilot had allegedly blamed a "security breach in the cargo section" for the diversion of the flight, one passenger abroad the flight said. However, passengers were placed on buses while dogs inspected the airplane and luggage after the plane landed.
Smedley confirmed he was on board the flight, reassuring his nearly 42,000 followers that "all is well," but refused to say more. "Yes. My plane was diverted," he tweeted. "Not going to discuss more than that. Justice will find these guys."
"Today AA Flight 362 traveling from Dallas to San Diego was diverted to Phoenix Sky Harbor Airport. The flight landed without incident," the FBI said in a statement Sunday night. "Passengers were safely removed from the plane. The investigation is still ongoing."
No other details were immediately available, CBS News reported.
