Four passengers were removed from a Chicago-bound plane at the Baltimore-Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport early Tuesday morning after a fellow passenger reported "suspicious activity."
The captain on Spirit Airlines Flight 969 asked police to remove three unidentified men and one unidentified woman from his plane after a passenger alerted a flight attendant to some suspicious behavior as the aircraft was
taxiing for takeoff, The Associated Press reported.
All other passengers were briefly removed from the plane, which was originally scheduled to depart for Chicago at 6 a.m. The flight ended up taking off around 9 a.m.
“While the aircraft was taxiing to the runway, a passenger alerted a flight attendant of a passenger engaged in suspicious activity on board,” said Spirit Airlines spokesman Stephen Schuler, according to the AP.
The four passengers removed from the flight for suspicious behavior were questioned by both state and federal law enforcement officers, according to Maryland Transportation Authority Police 1st
Sgt. Jonathan Green, as The Washington Times reported. All luggage was also briefly removed from the flight and screened by the police dogs on the tarmac.
Green declined to provide further information regarding the "suspicious activity" reported, and he also declined to discuss any possible terrorism threats, citing an active investigation.
“We are interviewing the four individuals to see if any violations occurred,” Green told The Washington Times. “We have to get to the bottom of what happened.”
Spirit spokesman Stephen Schuler did state, however, that both the flight attendant who notified the captain and the captain himself acted “out of an abundance of caution,” in ordering the plane to return to the gate and demand the removal of the
four passengers, according to CBS News.
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