On Sunday, passengers aboard a Southwest Airlines flight heading to San Francisco had to turn around and return to Los Angeles due to an altercation between two passengers on board.

As CNN reports, Melissa Ford, a spokesperson for the Dallas-based airline, said, "Our initial information is that flight attendants swiftly coordinated with pilots on the flight deck to get the aircraft on the ground safely and quickly after a physical altercation by one passenger against another." 

According to Ford, who declined to offer any details pertaining to the mid-air altercation, the pilot landed the Boeing 737-300 back at Los Angeles International Airport then taxied to a gate where authorities entered the cabin. Ford did, however, describe the confrontation between the two passengers as a "rapidly escalating situation."

NBC News reports that the flight turned back after a woman on the plane claimed a man had tried to choke her because of a reclined seat. The pilot informed Air Traffic Control of the situation, saying, "Evidently we've got two passengers who are in a physical altercation so we need to get turned around and get back to LAX."

Upon landing, one passenger was removed from the flight. The rest of the 136 passengers were transferred to another plane which would get them to their intended destination five hours after their scheduled time of arrival.

Southwest Airlines is the fourth-largest U.S. airline in terms of traffic and is considered to be the top carrier of domestic passengers.

Earlier this month, Southwest Airlines announced that hundreds of their flights had been delayed due to technical problems. The company went so far as tell their passengers to print boarding passes before going to the airport.

As reported in the Wall Street Journal, 450 of the 3,600 scheduled flights for Sunday Oct. 11, were delayed.