Jet Bound for LAX Diverted in Scare

A Delta Airlines flight from Atlanta to Los Angeles was diverted to Shreveport, La., under fighter jet escort Wednesday after a passenger handed a threatening note to a flight attendant, the FBI said.

Eric A. Stephenson, 36, of Venice was arrested and taken to the federal Caddo Correctional Center in Shreveport, where he was booked on suspicion of interfering with a flight crew member.

Sheila Thorne, a spokeswoman for the FBI, said Stephenson would be given a mental evaluation.

The U.S. attorney’s office said the note came after an announcement by the pilot that the plane would be detouring from its planned route because of bad weather.

“It contained language that the pilot should not divert from the original flight path and some other language which seemed bizarre,” said Bill Flanagan, an official with the U.S. attorney’s office in Shreveport. “It didn’t make a lot of sense, but . . . it was alarming.”

Passenger Christopher Ice, 38, of Simi Valley said a flight attendant told him the note read: “Change your flight pattern. Don’t fly over Texas.”

Another passenger, Hugh Brown, 47, of Los Angeles, said Stephenson gave the note to a flight attendant and told her, “Give this to the captain.”

About a minute later, another flight attendant returned, Brown said, and told the man, “We take things like this very seriously.”

He replied, in a subdued voice, “You should take it seriously.”

“The man never acted up or even got up from his seat,” Brown said. “He seemed calm.”

About two hours after it landed in Shreveport, the Boeing 757 resumed its flight to Los Angeles.

The interception by fighter jets was the third such incident since the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11.

On Sept. 27, threats from a passenger forced an Air Canada jet bound for Toronto to turn back to Los Angeles International Airport. The jetliner was escorted by F-16 jets from March Air Force Base near Riverside. The man reportedly became obstreperous after being caught smoking in a lavatory.

Just three days ago, fellow passengers subdued an apparently deranged man who tried to break into the cockpit of an L.A.-Chicago jetliner. Officials said the man apparently feared the plane was going to crash into Chicago’s Sears Tower. Fighter jets provided a wingtip escort for the jumbo jet into Chicago.

Flight 357, which took off from Atlanta’s Hartsfield International Airport at 11:35 a.m. PDT Wednesday with 139 passengers and a crew of nine, reported its concerns to air traffic controllers while heading west over northern Louisiana.

The Federal Aviation Administration said two fighter jets, an A-10 and an F-16, intercepted the jetliner and escorted it to the ground. Fighter-jet interceptions are now standard policy in such incidents.

The airliner touched down at Shreveport Regional Airport, used primarily by commuter jets, at 1:09 p.m. Airport officials said police and National Guard troops surrounded the plane. Police said Stephenson appeared disoriented as FBI agents escorted him off the plane.

Before the plane left again for Los Angeles, Brown said, several passengers, who were unnerved by the incident, got off the plane.