Passengers subdue pilot on JetBlue flight after bomb rant
Posted March 28, 2012 9:55 am.
This article is more than 5 years old.
A pilot’s mid-flight emotional meltdown provided some scary moments for JetBlue passengers en route to Las Vegas on Tuesday.
The plane, which was headed from New York to Sin City, had to make an emergency landing in Amarillo, Texas, after the pilot left the cockpit and began ranting about a bomb, urging passengers to pray and screaming “They’re going to take us down!”
Captain Clayton Osbon also ranted about al-Qaida, Iraq and Afghanistan, passengers said.
Five passengers subdued the Osbon after his co-pilot had locked him out of the cockpit.
“The first moment that I think something really was critically wrong was there was an off-duty pilot sitting a few rows behind and the flight attendants asked him to step into the cockpit,” passenger Tony Antolino, who was among the men who pinned the pilot to the floor, told CNN.
“At that point, that was a sign that something was critically wrong. The captain’s behaviour was extremely erratic and progressively getting worse. So I think those were early indications that something was going horribly wrong with him.”
The co-pilot and an off-duty pilot who was a passenger landed the plane in Texas.
JetBlue officials described the incident on flight 191 as a “medical situation.” Osbon was removed from the plane in Texas and taken to hospital.
The FBI, local police and airline agencies are investigating the incident.
On Wednesday, JetBlue CEO and president Dave Barger said there’s nothing in the pilot’s record to indicate he was at risk for this type of episode and described Osbon as a “consummate professional.”
Earlier this month passengers onboard an American Airlines flight wrestled a flight attendant to the ground after she got on the public address system and spoke about the 9/11 attacks and said “I’m not responsible for this plane crashing.” The plane landed at Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport and the flight attendant was taken to hospital.
And in 2008, an Air Canada co-pilot was removed from a flight from Toronto bound for London, after being restrained and sedated following a mental breakdown on the plane.
With files from CNN
