Texas-bound Southwest Airlines flight rerouted after bomb threat

No explosives have been found on an Austin-bound Southwest Airlines flight that took off from LAX Monday — although questions still remain about why the threat was made in the first place. 

Flight 2675 left Los Angeles for Texas around 2:12 PM on Monday with 143 passengers on board. Authorities received a phoned-in bomb threat after the flight had already departed. 

The flight was soon diverted to Phoenix, due to what Southwest deemed an "abundance of caution." F-16 fighter jets were scrambled to accompany the flight into the Sky Harbor airport. 

"When I realized that those were not civilian aircraft, and they're flying overhead, following it into the airport, I knew something was not in the realm of normal," said witness Kenny Gaddis to ABC 15 News. 

More from GlobalPost: Southwest Airlines bomb threats being investigated

The airplane was diverted to an out-of-the-way area, and passengers were isolated and questioned while their possessions were searched. They were then diverted onwards to another Austin-bound flight, after a delay of about eight hours. 

A search found no explosives aboard the plane, but authorities are attempting to determine who phoned in the threat and why.

"The FBI and law enforcement partners are responding to conduct an investigation of the aircraft, as well as to determine the person or persons responsible for the threat," Laura Eimiller of the FBI's Los Angeles field office told the Associated Press. 

This isn't the only recent fake bomb threat to hit Southwest in recent weeks: in early May, two similar calls were made on the same day, forcing one flight to be canceled before it took off, and another to be isolated and searched upon arrival in Orange County.

It remains unclear if any of these threats are linked.