Bomb Threat Phone Call Halts Two Southwest Airline Flights In Phoenix, Orange Country

Flights with ties to Phoenix and Orange Country were halted Tuesday night following an anonymous threatening phone call by an “outside agency,” local authorities said, according to the Associated Press.

Southwest Airlines Flights 1184 and 811 were stopped for screening after a “phone threat” was received and were later cleared in the evening when no explosives were found on both the aircraft, Lt. Joe Balicki from Orange Country Sherriff Department told Los Angeles Times.

The threat information came around 7:30 p.m (local time) when Flight 1184 from John Wayne Airport was on its way to Phoenix, Southwest spokesman Ashley Dillon told ABC News.

The plane was searched and screened thoroughly on arrival at Sky Harbor International Airport in Phoenix and was cleared for travel to Tulsa, Oklahoma, FBI spokesman Manuel Johnson said.

Later, passenger flight 811 was also taken into isolation while it “was preparing to take off” after the local authorities received a vague bomb threat information, Balicki told LA Times. The phone threat was received by an outside agency,” he said.

However, this flight, scheduled from Orange Country to Phoenix, was cleared for take-off but was later cancelled due to noise curfew, Dillon told the paper.Dillon said the threat was “unspecific,” hence Southwest decided to halt and screen both the flights.

Speaking about the speculation of links between both the incidents, an FBI’s spokesman said it was being investigated if the two were related.