American Airlines flight diverted after passenger made threatening statement

An American Airlines flight from Charlotte North Carolina (CLT/KCLT) to Los Angeles California (LAX/KLAX) was forced to divert to Albuquerque New Mexico (ABQ/KABQ) overnight after a few passengers made "threatening statements" to a crew member, a spokesperson for American Airlines said.
"American Airlines flight 482 diverted to Albuquerque following a passenger disruption in which  threatening statements were made toward a crew member," airline spokesperson Curtis Blessing said in a statement. "The aircraft which departed Charlotte from runway 36C at 8.33 p.m. (local) was met by law enforcement after landing safely on runway 08 in Albuquerque at 10:25 p.m. (local). 

The passengers involved were escorted from the aircraft, and the flight later departed for LAX," at 11.45 p.m. the statement said. The flight landed safely in Los Angeles on runway 06R at 12.26 a.m.

In a statement from the airline they said "We thank our crew for their professionalism and apologize to our customers for any inconvenience this caused to their travel plans."

Aircraft Information:

Airline: American Airlines

Code: AA/AAL

Aircraft: Airbus A320-231

Registration: N923US

Serial Number: 6543

First Flew: April 2015

Last year was the worst on record for unruly airplane passenger behavior in the United States, according to Federal Aviation Administration data.
A whopping 5,981 reports of unruly passengers were logged by the FAA as of the 31st December. 

Of those, 4,290 nearly 72% -- were mask-related incidents.

So far this year, 323 unruly passenger incidents had been reported to the Federal Aviation Administration as of the 1st February.