WestJet hijacking falsely reported, says airline

Reports of a hijacked WestJet flight last weekend turned out to be false, the airline confirmed Saturday.

The supposed hijacking is alleged to have taken place on WestJet flight 2154, travelling from Vancouver to Puerto Vallarta, Mexico on Saturday afternoon.

According to WestJet, the rumour stemmed from a tweet by a flight-tracking website that the aircraft operating the flight was transmitting a hijack code via its transponders. WestJet said that there is no evidence that such a code was ever transmitted. Both the flight crew and local air traffic control confirm that no such code was ever sent or received, and testing on the aircraft's transponder shows it was functionally normally, said the airline.

The aircraft arrived in Puerto Vallarta as scheduled and continued its scheduled flight back to Canada, said a release from WestJet.