A United Airlines flight was diverted, and passengers were evacuated after a strange beeping noise made the pilots fear there could be a bomb on board.
The Boeing 737 Max was operating Saturday’s United Flight 2092, from Chicago to New York.
About halfway into the journey, the airplane made an abrupt turn to the south and changed course toward Pittsburgh, according to data from Flightradar24.
In an audio recording published by LiveATC.net, a pilot can be heard reporting the issue to air traffic control.
“We got an issue up here. We’re getting a sequential beeping,” he said. “We’re gonna have to start treating this as a potential bomb.”
The pilot then said the beeping was occurring every second, per the cockpit audio.
In a statement posted on X, the FBI’s Pittsburgh office said all passengers and crew “safely evacuated the aircraft.”
It added that FBI special agents and bomb technicians were on the ground coordinating with local authorities.
The Allegheny County Police Department said its bomb squad conducted a sweep of the aircraft with K9s, and found “negative results.”
It’s not clear what the beeping might have been.
United confirmed to Business Insider that the diversion was due to a “potential security concern.”
The Federal Aviation Administration did not immediately respond to a request for comment sent outside US working hours.
“Passengers boarded a different aircraft to New York LaGuardia and departed at 4:24 p.m. ET,” United said in a statement.
The second plane, another Boeing 737, landed about 6.5 hours behind schedule.
The diverted plane took off from Pittsburgh about 11 p.m. on Sunday and landed back in Chicago an hour later.
While the incident sounded frightening for those on board, there have been more dramatic bomb alerts on flights in the past.
For example, last February, the Italian Air Force scrambled fighter jets to escort an American Airlines plane. The flight from New York to New Delhi diverted to Rome, and the airline said the “possible security concern” was later found to be “non-credible.”
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