A Frontier Airlines flight to Florida was diverted tonight (Sunday) to the city of Atlanta after one of the passengers was seen in possession of a Japanese knife.
No one was injured and passengers were offered an alternative flight to Florida in the morning.
Also, after landing, the passenger was taken into custody by the local authorities.
Passenger Lillian Hoffman told NBC News that when the suspect went to the bathroom, the person sitting next to him alerted her that the suspect had a knife and was "threatening to stab people."
"So I went up to talk to the flight attendants at the front of the plane," said Hoffman, "in the end they told me they were going to land the plane immediately and we landed in 20 minutes."
One of the passengers was seen in possession of a Japanese knife. (Photo: official website, Boom company)
The airline did not address the question of whether the suspect threatened to stab others on the plane, and only reported that "the passenger in question was taken into custody by law enforcement in Atlanta."
Japanese knives are not allowed on commercial flights in the United States.
This, as part of the safety decisions taken in the country after the September 11, 2001 disaster in which nearly 3,000 people died in attacks when al-Qaeda hijackers wielding Japanese knives flew planes into the World Trade Center towers in New York and the Pentagon in Arlington, Virginia.
Another plane, a fourth, crashed in Pennsylvania.
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