Flight Is Diverted When Passenger Is Seen With Box Cutter, Airline Says

A Frontier Airlines flight from Cincinnati to Tampa was diverted to Atlanta late Friday after a passenger was seen with a box cutter, the airline said.

No injuries were reported, and the plane landed safely at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport, where the passenger was taken into custody by the Atlanta police, Jennifer F. de la Cruz, a Frontier spokeswoman, said in an email.

“All passengers have deplaned the aircraft and are being provided overnight hotel accommodations in Atlanta,” she said. “A new flight has been scheduled for tomorrow morning to transport passengers from Atlanta to their final destination of Tampa.”

Tim Turner, a spokesman for the Atlanta airport, said that the passenger, a man whose name he did not know, had been threatening to stab passengers and crew members on the airplane. The authorities found the box cutter on the man after he was in custody, Mr. Turner said.

Officials at the Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International Airport, where the flight originated, could not immediately be reached late Friday. Messages left for the Atlanta Police Department were also not immediately returned late Friday.

It was not immediately clear how the man had been able to get a box cutter onto the airplane. Messages left for the Transportation Security Administration, which has authority over security and passenger screening at U.S. airports, were not immediately replied to late Friday.

Box cutters were prohibited on airplanes amid a security overhaul after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, when four domestic flights were commandeered by members of Al Qaeda wielding box cutters.