Air France Flight 22 Escorted To JFK Airport After Anonymous Threat

A commercial flight from Paris to New York was intercepted mid-route by the U.S. military after an anonymous threat was received by government authorities on Monday morning.

ABC News reports that the Maryland State Police McHenry Barrack received a mysterious call at 6:45 a.m. warning of a “chemical weapons threat” on board Air France Flight 22, which departed from Charles de Gaulle Airport in Paris on Monday morning. U.S. authorities attempted to contact Air France representatives but were unsuccessful since many corporate offices are closed in observance of Memorial Day in the U.S. and Whit Monday in France.

The flight and its passengers were not thought to be in any danger, however, U.S. authorities chose to take a precautionary approach. The Air France flight was met with U.S. fighter jets and escorted to its final destination at John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York City.

The plane, an Airbus A-330, landed around 10:25 a.m. on Monday morning and was immediately searched, WABC-TV New York reports. A FOX 5 correspondent named Lisa Evers reported in the early afternoon that the investigation was complete and that the FBI had determined there was no chemical threat on the plane.

Around 1 p.m., Evers also tweeted that a bomb threat had also prompted a Saudia flight to be checked upon its arrival at JFK.