WestJet said flight WS442 from Edmonton to Toronto was diverted to Winnipeg after 8 p.m. Monday because it was advised of a threat, but the airline would not elaborate on the nature or origin of the threat.

City of Winnipeg emergency crews and RCMP were called to Winnipeg James Richardson International Airport.

In a statement released Tuesday, Manitoba RCMP said members of the airport detachment and the Canine Explosives Unit were called in to assist the plane.

By 9:15, WestJet said the 54 passengers and five crew members who were on board the Boeing 737 had evacuated the plane.

“In order to evacuate the aircraft as quickly as possible, the crew made the decision to deploy the emergency evacuation slides,” said Robert Palmer, WestJet Media Relations.

Palmer said six passengers received non-life threatening injuries in the emergency evacuation and received medical treatment on the ground. Some were taken to hospital, though he did not specify how many.

"Officers interviewed all passengers, and the plane and baggage were cleared late last night," the police statement said. "The RCMP continue to investigate the origin of the call alerting authorities to a possible threat on the plane."

WestJet said passengers would be accommodated in local hotels overnight and put on flights in the morning, with all guests arriving in Toronto by 2 p.m. Eastern time Tuesday.

Passenger Joel Gupta, who was aboard the diverted flight, said that the passengers weren't given any information about the threat that caused the plane to divert.

But once the plane landed at the airport, passengers were suddenly rushed off the aircraft, he told CTV Winnipeg.

"All of a sudden they made an emergency evacuation warning and said, 'Evacuate, evacuate, evacuate,'" he said. "Everybody rushed to the doors and jumped off the plane; either went down the slide or slid down the wing."

He said eventually the passengers were transported to the airport terminal, where they were taken to hotels for the night.

Another passenger, Damon Thorne, said it didn't take long to evacuate the plane because it wasn't a full flight.

"Luckily, we only had 54 passengers on board. It would have been much worse with a full plane," he said.

Both passengers praised the flight crew for the way they handled the situation. “I think they did a really good job,” Gupta said.

The diversion and evacuation is the third incident of its kind to have occurred in the last week.

On Saturday, a WestJet flight from Edmonton to Halifax landed in Saskatoon due to a bomb threat.

Last Thursday, a bomb threat on an Air Canada flight from St. John's to Ottawa forced the St. John's airport to temporarily shut down. Nothing suspicious was found in either of those cases.

-With files from CTV’s Andrea Slobodian, CTVNews.ca Staff and The Canadian Press