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Authorities are trying to find out who made a threat that forced a New York City-bound Air China flight to turn around and return to Beijing in the middle of the trip.

Information about the threat, the nature of which is still unclear, was provided by the US, but "it could have been forged and released from inside the country," a Beijing airport police spokesman said.

Officials are making efforts to track down who sent the false threat, he said.

Flight CA981 was scheduled to take off from Beijing Capital International Airport at 1 pm on Wednesday and land 13.5 hours later at New York City's John F Kennedy International Airport.

After taking off at 1:30 pm, the Boeing 747 jumbo jet, which had more than 300 passengers, returned to the Beijing airport at 8:25 pm on Wednesday.

"We were told there were unsafe factors on that flight," an Air China spokesman said, declining to elaborate.

Other sources in China, including the country's civil aviation authority and airport police, also declined on Thursday to reveal specifics of the threat.

All passengers, their carry-on and checked-in luggage, and cargo on board were re-screened. Police also searched the plane's passenger and cargo cabins. Nothing suspicious was found, airport police said.

"Flight safety is too important. We won't take any risks," said Yang Rui, deputy general manager of Air China North America.

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