Passenger tries to open door; plane diverted
Chicago-bound jetliner lands in St. Louis because of 'unruly' passenger
A Burbank man is in custody in St. Louis tonight and being questioned by police and the FBI after he tried to exit a Continental Airlines flight as it flew from Houston to Chicago this afternoon.
Witnesses and officials said that a flight attendant on Flight No. 546 saw the 34-year-old man run to the main boarding door in the front of the Boeing 737 and say he had to get off the plane. He was quickly subdued by others on board and the plane was diverted to St. Louis, officials said.
"The guy was a bull," said Houston resident Tony Harris, a passenger who tackled the man as he gripped the door handle. Harris, 60 and a U.S. Army veteran, said that he took the man down from behind and struggled on the floor with him before handcuffing him.
Asked if the man said why he was trying to get off the plane, Harris said: "He said he had a rough Mother's Day."
An FBI spokeswoman in St. Louis said the agency is working with the airport police to investigate the incident, though officials do not believe the incident was terrorism-related. The FBI is coordinating with the U.S. Attorney's office in St. Louis on federal charges against the passenger.
At 1:18 p.m. Central Daylight Time, the airport police got a call about an unruly passenger, said Lambert-St. Louis International Airport spokesman Jeff Lea. When the plane landed about 10 minutes later, officers boarded the plane and found the man being held by a flight attendant and two passengers. After about an hour, the plane was cleared for takeoff and left for Chicago, said Julie King, a Continental spokeswoman.
Earlier Sunday, a Delta Airlines flight from Detroit to San Diego was diverted to Albuquerque, N.M. The flight was cleared to take off again after authorities found "no suspicious devices" on the plane, the FBI said.
According to CNN, the flight was diverted after a flight attendant found a suspicious note in a lavatory.
The man who disrupted the Houston-to-Chicago flight was a tall, burly passenger, said Sara Olkon, a former Tribune reporter on the flight who said she heard a flight attendant screaming for help.
"It felt very inevitable," said Olkon, who had just been reading about the death of Osama bin Laden. "I started shaking and tears were coming out of my eyes. My heart was pounding through my chest."
She said law enforcement authorities boarded the plane parked at the gate in St. Louis to inspect for explosives. Squad cars still surrounded the plane on the tarmac about 30 minutes after landing, she said.
Harris originally had a seat in the 23rd row, but was moved up to the 12th row, he said.
From his seat, he said, he saw the man run to the door, shove a flight attendant out of the way and reach for the door handle as two first-class passengers tried to stop him.
Joining the fracas, Harris jumped on the man's back, wrapped his legs around the man's torso and got him in a mixed-martial arts-style chokehold.
The man soon fell to the floor unconscious, and Harris handcuffed him. Moments later he regained consciousness and started struggling again. Harris said he put him in a chokehold once again to subdue him.
After the action subsided, he said, other passengers gave him a round of applause and offered to buy him a drink. Meanwhile, the man was moved to the first row of seats, where Harris sat next to the man and spoke to him briefly until the plane landed and he was taken into custody.
Harris, a native Chicagoan, was on his way to surprise his mom, who burst into tears when she heard what happened.
"I really wasn't thinking," he said. "He had that handle, and I just reacted. I thought, 'Today is not the day he ruins my Mother's Day.' "