Southwestern plane struck by gunfire at Texas airport

A Southwest Airlines flight with passengers on board was struck by gunfire as it prepared to take off from Dallas Love Field Airport in Texas, authorities said.

Flight 2494 was preparing to depart for Indianapolis when “a bullet apparently struck the right side of the aircraft below the cockpit,” a Southwest spokesperson told US BBC affiliate CBS News.

No injuries were reported and the plane returned to the gate and the passengers departed, an airport spokesman said.

The domestic airport runway was temporarily closed but has since reopened.

Dallas police are currently leading the investigation into the Friday evening incident.

The officers responded to reports of gunfire at 21:48 local time (03:48 GMT on Saturday) and discovered that the aircraft had been hit.

The Federal Aviation Administration said in a statement that the bullet struck the cockpit of the Boeing 737-800 Max plane.

No details have been formally released about the circumstances surrounding the incident, but local TV station WFAA reported that police believed the shooting was the result of random gunfire.

The outlet confirms that there were 99 people on board the flight.

Southwest has said it will accommodate all passengers on other flights.

Earlier this week, three planes landing or taking off from the main airport in Port-au-Prince, Haiti’s capital, were hit by gunfire as gang violence ravages the Caribbean country.

These incidents prompted the Federal Aviation Administration to issue a thirty-day ban on U.S. airlines flying to Haiti.