Southwest Airlines plane struck by gunfire near Dallas Love Field Airport in Texas, officials say

Gunshots were reported near Dallas Love Field Airport in Dallas, Texas with a bullet striking a plane late Friday night, according to a Dallas Love Field spokesperson.

Dallas Police are looking for a gunman who fired at a Southwest Airlines flight at Dallas Love Field Airport on Friday night, hitting the plane and forcing an evacuation.

The Federal Aviation Administration said Flight 2494 was reportedly struck by gunfire near the cockpit around 8:30 p.m., while taxiing for takeoff to Indianapolis.

The agency said the plane returned to the gate, where passengers deplaned.

Dallas police said they responded to a shooting call around 9:48 p.m. and there were no injuries. They said they temporarily closed the runway Friday evening while police conducted their investigation.

A spokesperson for Southwest said the plane has been removed from service.

DPD said they are the lead investigating agency, although the FBI said they have an airport liaison agent assigned who will work with police "and other federal partners as deemed necessary."

Shannon and Jamie Lee were on that flight with two of their kids and said everything seemed normal until they heard their pilot on the loudspeaker.

"He said there's a rattle outside of the plane and they needed to return back to the gate," Jamie recalled.

According to the couple, the pilot said they needed to see if the plane was functional. After that, he said the plane sustained some damage on the front, and that everyone would have to deplane.

They said everyone was calm, from the flight crew to the passengers.

"We had no idea that something happened. We thought Southwest had missed something in an inspection or something, you know... it was a normal mechanical issue," Shannon said.

The couple and their two sons didn't find out about the gunfire until they finally landed in Indianapolis around 2:30 a.m., and came across a news crew.

“I had my son with me. He was sitting in the window seat... And we were just in row 13. So, we were pretty close to the cockpit," Shannon said.

They said they're grateful for how Southwest handled the initial discussion with passengers on the plane, but think they should have told them what happened before getting on another flight.

"I was surprised that they had shut the runway, not really knowing if there were potentially other shots being fired or where the shot could have even come from," Jamie said.

The couple said they likely would have gone home that night and delayed their flight another day, or flown out of DFW International Airport, instead.

"You have to give people a choice, whether they want to put their safety at risk a second time in one night," Shannon said.

Aviation expert weighs in

"So, my first thought is like, 'Holy cow, somebody just shot a gun and it hit a commercial aircraft!" said Armen Kurdian, a retired Navy captain and Naval flight officer.

He said investigators will start by figuring out where the bullet came from.

"So, what was the orientation of the aircraft when it was actually hit? How deep did the bullet penetrate? That'll tell you what its speed was. And that'll give you an idea of the range from which it was fired," he said.

Kurdian said they'll also be looking into whether or not the shot was intentional.

"The fact that it hit so very close to the cockpit seems too much of a coincidence. The odds of that happening, I think, got to be really, really high," he said.

Kurdian said the damage could be wide-ranging, from something benign, like a light switch not working, to the GPS not working.

"Now, if it hits something more vital, say like a hydraulic system, then the pilots would be alerted rather quickly that there would be... a pressure drop in the hydraulic system," he explained.

He said aircraft have a lot of backups, and it's likely a bullet to the cockpit would not have caused a crash.

But he said it all still opens a security vulnerability.

"Did this put an idea into, say, a non-state or a state actor as, 'Oh, maybe this is something we can do to disrupt air travel'?" Kurdian said.

He said it's prudent for the airport and other agencies to consider safety measures.

"So, does it mean random sweeps outside of the airport while flight operations are going on? Does it mean that there's going to be more physical barricades or basically physical barriers, not just fences, but things that you actually can't see through, concrete, around the airport?" Kurdian said.

The Lees said they want to see what investigators find, and what safety improvements may result, before writing off one of their favorite airports and airlines.

"We fly quite a bit... and our, our kids fly on their own. So, it is concerning," Shannon said.

Southwest sent the couple an apology via email, along with a voucher toward a future flight.