United Flight Returns to Las Vegas After Hijack Text Threat

United Airlines Flight 1681 turned back to Las Vegas late Saturday after a flight attendant reportedly noticed a passenger texting about hijacking the aircraft, according to air traffic control audio cited by Simple Flying. The Boeing 737 MAX 8 had been climbing toward its cruising altitude on a route to Newark Liberty International Airport when the crew spotted the message and alerted the captain, who ordered the cockpit locked down.

The flight left Las Vegas Harry Reid International Airport at 10:51 p.m. local time, about 11 minutes behind its scheduled 10:40 p.m. departure. It had reached 24,000 feet when the flight attendant flagged the text to the captain, per the ATC recordings shared online by a user identified as RobV. The passenger was reportedly kept unaware that the crew had seen the message until law enforcement met the plane back on the ground in Las Vegas.

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Pilot described the situation to controllers mid-flight

In the ATC audio, the captain can be heard relaying the threat directly to controllers: "The passenger doesn't know anything is going on. The flight attendant saw him texting that he was going to hijack the aircraft." The aircraft executed a U-turn over Oak Grove, a ghost town in Arizona, before making several additional turns as it worked its way back toward Las Vegas airspace, Simple Flying reported, citing flight-tracking data.

The jet landed back at Harry Reid International at 11:42 p.m., roughly 50 minutes after it had taken off — a short, tense loop that never took the plane far from its departure airport. Law enforcement was waiting at the gate when the aircraft returned, according to the report. United did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Simple Flying on the incident or on what happened to the passenger once authorities boarded.

What happens next for passengers on the route

It remains unclear how United rebooked the roughly full planeload of passengers or whether the Newark-bound flight was delayed overnight or canceled outright. The airline has not released a statement detailing the outcome for the flagged passenger, including whether charges were filed. Travelers booked on United's Las Vegas-to-Newark route in the days following the incident should monitor the airline's app or website for schedule changes, as further details from United or law enforcement could still emerge.