PlayStation Network Crashes, Hackers Make Bomb Threat Against Plane Carrying Sony Exec

After claiming responsibility for a denial-of-service attack that took down the Sony PlayStation network, a group of hackers tweeted that there was a bomb onboard an American Airlines flight carrying the president of Sony Online Entertainment, John Smedley. That plane was diverted, and all passengers on it safely removed.

The flight took off from Dallas Fort-Worth to San Diego yesterday, and was diverted to Sky Harbor Airport in Phoenix, reports UPI.

The FBI confirmed the flight was diverted:

“Today AA Flight 362 traveling from Dallas to San Diego was diverted to Phoenix Sky Harbor Airport. The flight landed without incident,” the FBI said in a statement Sunday night. “Passengers were safely removed from the plane. The investigation is still ongoing.”

Although FBI agents didn’t identify a specific threat, the diversion appears to be in response to a tweet from a hacker group that named Sony Online Entertainment President John Smedley.

“.@AmericanAir We have been receiving reports that @j_smedley’s plane #362 from DFW to SAN has explosives on-board, please look into this,” a message on the group’s Twitter feed read.

The tweet appeared right after the PlayStation Network crashed, after suffering a distributed denial-of-service attack, or DDOS. The network was overwhelmed with sudden traffic and went down, Sony confirmed, but says  it has been restored without any customer data stolen.

The same hacker group is claiming credit for that attack, saying they “planted the ISIS flag on @Sony’s servers” on Twitter.

Smedley confirmed he was onboard the flight via Twitter, writing that “all is well.”

“Yes. My plane was diverted,” he tweeted. “Not going to discuss more than that. Justice will find these guys.”

American Airlines flight diverted after hackers make bomb threat [UPI]

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