(ORLANDO, FLORIDA) – Frontier Airlines returned Flight 1674 to the gate at Orlando International Airport on Saturday after crew members reported an unknown odor in the cabin around 3:40 p.m., sending three passengers to a hospital and prompting evaluations of seven people at the airport.

Airport officials said the flight turned back before takeoff at Orlando International Airport, also known as MCO. Officials had not identified the source of the smell, and Frontier Airlines had not provided a public explanation at the time of reporting.

The medical response centered on passengers rather than a full-plane evacuation report. After airport personnel evaluated seven passengers, responders transported three of them for treatment.

Saturday’s incident unfolded on the ground, not in the air. Crew members reported the odor while the aircraft was still preparing to depart, and the plane returned to the gate before leaving Orlando.

That sequence narrowed the known timeline to a short window. The odor report came at about 3:40 p.m., and the aircraft was back at the gate before takeoff, according to the information released.

Frontier Airlines remained the central unanswered voice in the episode. The carrier had not issued a public explanation for the unknown odor, leaving the cause unresolved as airport officials confirmed the hospitalizations and on-site medical evaluations.

Available details point to a focused but incomplete picture of what happened aboard Flight 1674. An odor was detected in the cabin, the crew reported it, the aircraft returned to the gate, and some passengers needed medical attention.

What triggered the smell remained undetermined. Officials said the source was not yet known.

The incident also drew attention because of a separate federal record tied to Frontier Airlines in Orlando. An FAA incident page shows an Orlando Frontier event under investigation, but that entry does not closely match the odor-and-hospitalization account confirmed in local information about Saturday’s airport response.

That discrepancy left the public record fragmented even as the basic facts of the airport incident were clear. A Frontier flight at Orlando International Airport returned to the gate after an unknown odor was reported, and passengers received medical evaluation.

Episodes involving cabin odors can trigger a rapid chain of decisions by crew and airport responders even before an aircraft leaves the ground. In this case, the response stayed concentrated at the gate area, where airport officials said the seven evaluations took place before three passengers were taken to a hospital.

No explanation had emerged from Frontier by the time the incident was reported, and authorities were still working to determine what caused the smell aboard the plane. Until that is resolved, the defining facts remain the ones established on Saturday afternoon at Orlando International Airport: an unknown odor, a Frontier Airlines flight that did not depart, and three passengers hospitalized after the plane returned to the gate.