A constant beeping noise coming from an object on a United Airlines flight from Chicago O’Hare to New York LaGuardia concerned the pilots of the Boeing 737MAX plane so much that they declared a potential bomb threat and made an emergency diversion to Pittsburgh International Airport.
Once on the ground in Pittsburgh, the pilots then ordered an evacuation of the plane via the emergency slides, although a suspect device has since been ruled out.
The unsettling incident occurred on Saturday morning as United Airlines flight UA-2092 was flying at around 35,000 feet over Ohio, en route to LaGuardia, according to data supplied by flight tracking website Flight Radar 24.
The pilots were recorded telling air traffic control: “We’ve got an issue up here. We’re getting a sequential beeping of a suspected item onboard. We are going to have to start treating this as a potential bomb. We are going to need to go and start a diversion and get things settled.”
The plane was given clearance to divert to Pittsburgh, where it was directed to a remote part of the airport, as emergency first responders rushed to the scene.
The pilot initially requested mobile airstairs to be brought to the aircraft to evacuate passengers onto the tarmac, but when they were informed that there might be a delay in getting airstairs to their location, they instead ordered an evacuation via the emergency slides.
Images shared on social media show all four emergency slides deployed on the aircraft, along with the activation of overwing emergency exits.
This is a developing story.
