BEIJING - An Air China flight returned to the Beijing Capital International Airport after receiving a threatening message, the carrier said Wednesday evening.

Flight CA981 returned to Beijing for the sake of passenger safety, the carrier said in a special announcement via its official microblog account at Sino Weibo, without offering further information about the incident.

The flight, which was scheduled to leave at 1:00 pm Wednesday for New York, will be taking off again at 11:55 pm, according to the airport.