During a United flight, an unknown person wrote a bomb threat on the plane's window: the flight was immediately interrupted
United Airlines Flight 1533 was diverted to Chicago due to a bomb threat. While en route to Los Angeles, a message was discovered on the restroom mirror indicating an imminent explosion on the aircraft.
According to CBS News, there were 202 passengers on board at the time of the incident. The flight departed from Newark Liberty International Airport at 6:05 a.m. and arrived at O'Hare Airport at 7:44 a.m. local time in Chicago.
Upon landing, emergency services and law enforcement personnel were already on standby. The crew promptly evacuated all passengers to a safe location.
Subsequently, the aircraft underwent a thorough search for any suspicious items, and a bag of interest was discovered by law enforcement.
A sniffer dog trained to detect explosives detected the suspicious item, which was subsequently removed by a specialized robot. The owner of the bag is reportedly undergoing questioning.
Other passengers aboard the flight were also searched and escorted by police to O'Hare Airport. Witnesses reported that during the landing, passengers were not informed of the reason for the route diversion and were not permitted to retrieve their belongings during the evacuation.
The FBI's Chicago office is conducting an investigation and stated in a release: "At this time, there is no indication of an immediate threat to public safety or the facility itself."
One user on X (formerly Twitter), who claims their business partner was aboard the flight, mentioned that the passengers were transferred to another aircraft and are en route to Los Angeles.
As previously reported by TravelWise, unfortunately, such incidents have been occurring very frequently lately. On February 13th, a note threatening a terrorist attack was found in the restroom of an IndiGo plane.