John Smedley

This isn’t a story that we expected to be writing on what should be a slow Sunday, but there are reports that Sony Online Entertainment chief John Smedley’s flight has been rerouted following bomb threats by the same group claiming responsibility for today’s PlayStation Network outage. The executive had tweeted earlier in the day that he was flying from Dallas to San Diego, but Flight Aware shows that the craft that the EverQuest maker was aboard was forced to touch down in Phoenix.

“Flight diverted for security reasons,” the Sony employee wrote on Twitter, seemingly unaware of the cyber squad’s messages. “Something about security and our cargo.” The plane is thought to be carrying 179 passengers and six crew members. An American Airlines spokesperson has since confirmed to the Arizona Republic that Flight 362 – the same one that Smedley was on – was diverted due to a security related incident. According to Kotaku, an SOE spokesperson has said that the FBI is now investigating the affair.

Update: Smedley has tweeted an update on the situation: "All is well," he said. "Yes, my plane was diverted. Not going to discuss more than that."

[source polygon.com, via joystiq.com, twitter.com, flightaware.com, azcentral.com, kotaku.com]