Capitol Police backtracks on airplane threat after ordering evacuation

The U.S. Capitol Police quickly backtracked on Wednesday after warning of an airplane threat to the Capitol and issuing an evacuation alert for it and surrounding office buildings.

“The Capitol was evacuated out of an abundance of caution this evening. There is no threat at the Capitol,” the department said in a statement.

According to publicly available flight data, a U.S. Army parachute plane took off from Joint Base Andrews outside Washington and was circling the area around the Capitol. The plane was part of a parachute stunt at Wednesday night’s Nationals baseball game, just south of the Capitol.

Andrew Desiderio contributed to this report.