A Southwest Airlines flight made an emergency landing this week after crew members reported an ‘unusual odor’ coming from the plane’s cabin.

Since confirmed by the FAA, the interruption saw Southwest 1685 divert from its flight path immediately after take-off Thursday – before landing again at Harry Reid International within barely a half hour.

The Boeing 737 had been headed toward Tulsa in Oklahoma when passengers who had taken off from Vegas moments before reported the strange smell – spurring the emergency maneuver and a still-ongoing investigation.

Multiple fire trucks were filmed responding to the emergency after the plane made its way back to the tarmac – with video showing multiple fire vehicles stationed outside the Vegas terminal with their lights flashing. 

At first, officials said the odor may have stemmed from smoke, but officials, after an initial inspection, said they failed to find anything abnormal with the aircraft’s inner-workings, but still replaced it with another that finished the five hour journey.

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A Southwest Airlines flight made an emergency landing Thursday after staff reported an ‘unusual odor’ coming from the cabin. The plane was headed to Oklahoma from Vegas, and was replaced even after officials reportedly found nothing wrong with its innerworkings

Since confirmed by the FAA, the interruption saw Southwest 1685 divert from its flight path immediately after take-off – before landing again at Harry Reid International within barely a half hour before being swapped with another, non-smelly craft

Southwest Airlines wrote in an email over the weekend: ‘We didn’t find anything abnormal after inspection.  

‘[The aircraft]’, the spokesperson said, ‘was swapped and continued on to its destination.’

Information from flight tracker FlightAware shed further light on the incident – showing how the plane was forced to turn around in midair less than 30 minutes after takeoff.

Within another ten, the plane was back on the ground after what flight crew said was an uneventful landing – though footage from immediately afterwards shows the pronounced response the maneuver earned.

Filmed by one of the plane’s passengers, the clip – only lasting 16 seconds – shows passengers peering through glass to get a glimpse of fire officials arriving, as they worked to assess where the odor was coming from and searched for any smoke.

When asked Saturday what crew members saw, the airline rep said, ‘It was not smoke to my knowledge… just an unusual odor’.

Days later – after the FAA revealed it’s investigating the issue – its cause remains unexplained.

The agency, however, confirmed over the weekend that no injuries occurred as a result of the odor or the ensuing emergency landing – which, according to the passenger who filmed the clip, ‘was handled [by the airline] well.’ 

Multiple fire trucks were filmed responding to the emergency after the plane made its way back to the tarmac – with video showing multiple fire vehicles stationed outside the Vegas terminal with their lights flashing

Filmed by one of the plane’s passengers, the clip – only lasting 16 seconds – shows passengers peering through glass to get a glimpse of fire officials arriving, as they worked to assess where the odor was coming from and searched for any smoke

Radio show host and heavy metal historian Eddie Trunk wrote: ‘I fly constantly but this was a 1st.’

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He added: ‘Vegas to Tulsa Thrs night on @SouthwestAir. Half hour into flight plane turns around & goes back to Vegas because of burning smell in the cabin. Immediately deplane & surrounded by fire trucks.

‘Crazy but SW handled well.’

The post, viewed nearly 20,000 times, eventually earned a reply from the airline, via another rep who thanked Trunk for his perceived patience.

‘Thanks for sharing this with us, Eddie,’ they wrote. ‘Please know that the Safety of our Customers and Crew Members is our number one priority.

‘We appreciate you hanging in there with us.’

With the federal officials now investigating the incident, the cause, as of Sunday noon, still remains unknown.

When asked to provide an update Sunday morning, reps for the airline did not immediately issue a response.

The incident comes roughly two months after an American Airlines flight embarking from Charlotte to Florida plunged more than 18,000 feet in just six minutes after passengers reported a ‘loud bang’ and a ‘burning smell’ filling the cabin

Harrison Hove, a University of Florida professor, recounted the August 10 ordeal in an interview, recalling how the craft descended in a matter of seconds after passengers heard the sound and caught wind of the accompanying smell.

‘We started to descend really fast, and once we were breathing, you started to smell this burning smell, so that’s when I got really nervous,’ Hove, speaking to WBTV News in Charlotte, recalled of the flight’s saga after taking off from Charlotte Intl.

‘The initial moments were really scary, really freaky.’

The statement, shared less than an hour after Hove and others successfully touched down in Florida, was accompanied with photos that showed how officials were forced to deploy oxygen masks to compensate for the change in pressure during the descent. 

The incident comes two months after an American Airlines flight from Charlotte to Florida plunged after passengers reported a ‘loud bang’ and a ‘burning smell’ filling the cabin. The incident was later blamed on a mechanism that ‘failed midflight and depressurized the cabin’

Hove disclaimed the snaps failed to ‘capture the burning smell, loud bang or ear pops’ passengers were forced to undergo during the scare, which officials explained while disembarking stemmed from ‘something [that] failed midflight and depressurized the cabin.’ 

Offering the update in real time on X, he added of the odor he and others were met with moments before, ‘[It] can apparently be attributed to using the oxygen canisters.

‘The wing flaps came out to immediately lower our altitude so there would be more oxygen,’ he added of how pilots actually intentionally descended to deal with the technical issue.

‘It was terrifying but turned out ok.’

The FAA has yet to issue an update on the status of its investigation into the more recent incident. Their investigation is still ongoing.