Kansas City, Mo. ? A miscommunication between an air traffic controller and a private pilot who discussed a “hostile takeover” led federal authorities to send F-16s to intercept the plane Monday evening.

There was no threat to anyone and no charges will be filed, authorities said Tuesday.

Authorities gave this account of the episode:

A Kansas City-based pilot, who no one would identify, was flying a small private business plane Monday evening from Oklahoma to Kansas City. The plane’s owner, physician Kenneth E. Mann, takes the trip at least twice a week to provide treatment at several hospitals.

The pilot was flying over Vance Air Force Base in Oklahoma on his way back to the Kansas City area when, as a courtesy, he told the air traffic tower at the air base that he was entering the base’s airspace.

When asked what his destination was, the pilot, a veteran with commercial airlines and private industry, said he preferred not to say because he said competitors could use such information to steal clients. He was not required to give a destination.

Mann said the pilot was concerned because he works “in a hostile business environment” and competitors could try to use such information to steal clients.

The pilot was speaking about a “hostile takeover” of a company, said Maj. Roger Yates of the Clay County Sheriff’s Department.

While the air traffic controller frantically tried to verify what he had heard, the pilot had turned his radio to a general aviation channel.

Within minutes, federal aviation authorities scrambled F-16s to intercept the plane just outside of Oklahoma City and escort it to the Clay County airport near Mosby.

Once on the ground, more than a dozen armed federal agents and tactical deputies surrounded the plane. Federal authorities then interviewed the pilot for two hours.

Mann said that within less than an hour, FBI agents were at his home.

But “mistakes happen, and in the times we live in after 9/11, it’s better to overreact than not react at all,” he said.

FBI spokesman Jeff Lanza said the pilot was released after being questioned Monday night and faces no criminal charges.

“People should be very careful in this heightened state of security about comments they make regarding airplanes and air traffic,” Lanza said.