A plane headed for Texas with 143 passengers on board was forced to perform an emergency landing in Phoenix, Monday, once officials received a bomb threat by telephone, Reuters reported.
The Southwest Airlines flight 2675 plane left from Los Angeles in the early afternoon, and grounded in Phoenix, Arizona around 3:30 p.m. local time.
Each passenger was removed from the plane without incident, each person using airline steps to exit the aircraft onto shuttle buses nearby, The Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport and Southwest told Reuters.
United States fighter jets scanned the air while other government officials monitored the evacuation on the ground.
The Boeing 737 was bound for Austin when the Los Angeles Police Department received a call from an unidentified individual who threatened to detonate a bomb on the commercial Southwest flight.
The FBI's Los Angeles spokesperson Laura Eimiller told Reuters that the government was in the midst of an extensive investigation, in search of the people-or person-responsible for making the call.
As the Southwest plane made its descent, U.S. Air Force F-16 fighter jets were moved from Davis-Monthan Air Force Base in Tuscon to Phoenix to keep an eye on the situation above ground.
Michael Kucharek, spokesperson for the North American Aerospace Defense Command told Reuters that the situation warranted fighter jet diversion.
"It was serious enough that we diverted aircraft from their original flight plan," Kucharek said.
The passengers that were removed from the plane were told they'd be taken to Austin, "as soon as possible," according to Southwest Airlines spokesperson Katie McDonald.
No explosives were found on board the aircraft.
The diverted plane returned to fly the skies later on Tuesday.
