Sony Executive’s AA Flight Grounded Due To Hacker Bomb Threat

As if there hasn't been enough plane-related news this year, an American Airlines flight carrying the president of Sony Online Entertainment John Smedley was grounded Sunday after reportedly receiving bomb threats from hackers.

Mashable reports that the hackers announced via Twitter that explosives were on board the plane.

Earlier in the day, two hacker groups, Lizard Squad and Gamed Dog, wrecked havoc on Sony's PlayStation servers. Both have claimed to be responsible for the DDoS (Distributed denial of service) attack, which according to Sony, inflicted an "artificially high" amount of traffic on PlayStation Network and Sony Entertainment Network. Lizard Squad took credit for the hack on Twitter, while Famed God released a video.

Two hours later, Lizard Squad sent out a tweet saying American Airlines Flight 362, en route from Dallas-Fort Worth to San Diego, had explosives on board.

According to flight tracking system Flight Aware, the plane was diverted to Phoenix, where it landed safely Sunday afternoon.

Confusion swept over all passengers on board - including Smedley himself. The executive released a series of tweets expressing his frustration over the situation. One read, "Awesome. Flight diverted to Phoenix for security reasons," another, "I hate American Airlines."

After finding out that the threats were directed at him, he wrote, "Yes. My plane was diverted. Not going to discuss more than that. Justice will find these guys."

PlayStation blog released a statement announcing that its servers are now back online. No official connection between the cyber breach and the diverted flight has been confirmed. The FBA is currently conducting an investigation into the incident.