Does a video show a Muslim passenger being removed from a Southwest Airlines plane after threatening to blow up a Nashville-to-Fort Lauderdale flight in early October 2026? No, that's not true: The video is from more than seven months earlier, on March 6, 2026, when the flight was diverted to Atlanta to "respond to a possible security matter," which was later determined not to be a credible threat. A Southwest spokesperson told Lead Stories that "Nothing new occurred."
The claim appeared in a post and video (archived here) by the @realJohnJohnJr account on X on Oct. 9, 2026. It read:
🚨BREAKING: @SouthwestAir Southwest Airlines Flight 2094 from Nashville to Fort Lauderdale, Florida was forced to divert to Atlanta late last night after a an Arabic looking Muslim passenger onboard the plane threatened to blow the plane up with a bomb!
You can see the SWAT team apprehend the Muslim passenger while terrified passengers were forced to put their hands up.
Zero media coverage!!!! Share this everywhere!!
DEPORT ALL MUSLIMS FROM AMERICA!!
This is what a screenshot of the video in the post looked like at the time of writing:
(Image source: post by @realJohnJohnJr on X.)
The post is embedded below:
🚨BREAKING: @SouthwestAir Southwest Airlines Flight 2094 from Nashville to Fort Lauderdale, Florida was forced to divert to Atlanta late last night after a an Arabic looking Muslim passenger onboard the plane threatened to blow the plane up with a bomb! You can see the SWAT team apprehend the Muslim passenger while terrified passengers were forced to put their hands up. Zero media coverage!!!! Share this everywhere!! DEPORT ALL MUSLIMS FROM AMERICA!!
-- John Fitzgerald Kennedy Jr (@realJohnJohnJr) October 9, 2026
Video origin
There was no recent media coverage of the supposed threat because the incident shown in the video did not occur on Oct. 8, 2026, but on March 6, 2026. The video posted on X has a watermark for the TikTok account @username66788752, which is no longer available on the platform. However, Lead Stories found the same video (archived here) uploaded by the @complex account on TikTok on March 7, 2026. The caption credited the original TikTok account. It read:
Southwest Airlines Flight 2094 from Nashville to Fort Lauderdale diverted to Atlanta after a passenger allegedly made a bomb threat. The plane landed safely, and authorities handled the situation after the diversion, the FBI has since commented on the issue detailing that 'there was no credible threat & no charges will be filed.'
[via/ TT @usename66788752 ]
The earlier video is embedded below:
@complex Southwest Airlines Flight 2094 from Nashville to Fort Lauderdale diverted to Atlanta after a passenger allegedly made a bomb threat. The plane landed safely, and authorities handled the situation after the diversion, the FBI has since commented on the issue detailing that 'there was no credible threat & no charges will be filed.' [via/ TT @username66788752 ]
♬ original sound - COMPLEX
News searches
Lead Stories searched Google News (archived here) and Yahoo News (archived here) and found widespread coverage from established news outlets from March 2026, using the search terms: "Southwest Airlines Flight 2094 from Nashville to Fort Lauderdale, Florida." There was no such incident in October 2026.
Southwest Airlines responded to questions about the claim in an Oct. 9, 2026, email sent to Lead Stories. A statement from spokesman Lynn Lunsford said:
Nothing new occurred. Thanks for checking.
At the time of the original incident, Southwest said in a statement (archived here), as reported by Fox 5 Atlanta:
Southwest Airlines Flight 2094 landed safely at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport (ATL) Friday evening after diverting to respond to a possible security matter...
We appreciate the professionalism of our Flight Crew and apologize to our Customers for the delay. Nothing is more important to Southwest than the Safety of its Customers and Employees.
