A man who made a bomb threat about a Shenzhen Airlines flight on Thursday confessed to the police that he made up the story to stop a creditor on board the plane from reaching him, the Legal Mirror reported on Monday.

The suspect, Xiong Yi, 29, of Shiyan, Hubei province, operated a secondhand car business in Guangdong province.

Xiong told police on Thursday he was involved in a debt dispute with one of the passengers on the flight from Xiangyang, Hubei, to Shenzhen, Guangdong, the report said.

To stop the creditor from going to Guangdong to find him, Xiong called the airline and said there was a bomb on the flight, forcing the plane to make an emergency landing.

Xiong was taken into custody at a hotel in Dongguan, Guangdong, on Saturday and escorted by police to Wuhan on Sunday morning.

He could face both criminal charges and civic liability for disturbing air traffic and causing the air carrier economic losses.