Man Threatens Baby Girl on LA to Honolulu Flight
Northwest Flight 91 from Los Angeles to Honolulu had a scary incident overnight according to the Honolulu Advertiser. A man stalked a family in coach and then towards the final minutes of the flight, rushed the cockpit and had to be subdued.
The baby’s 30-year-old father, who would only give his first name of Jean-Francois, said the couple and their sleeping girl were seated in Row 16 against the cabin’s bulkhead when the man moved from the back of the airplane and sat down in a seat on the other side of the aisle, one row in front of them.
“He was behaving very strangely,” Jean-Francois said. “Stand up. Sit down. He was not listening to the orders of the crew.
“He looked mentally affected. His mind was not all there. … He had a (cell phone) cord in his hand. We started to be afraid of that because it could be a weapon. … He said to the flight attendant that he wanted to kill the baby.”
For the next two hours, the man kept staring at the baby. The parents said the tension in the cabin lasted for the rest of the trip across the ocean.
Flight attendants several times asked the man to move toward the back of the plane, but he refused, the parents said. At one point, Sheila, who was sitting in the aisle with the baby in her arms, switched seats with her husband.
“Personally I’m upset that they left this guy with a weapon in his hand for so long,” Jean-Francois said. “We’re quite upset with how they handled it. If he really wanted to do something, he could have done a lot of things.”
After this ordeal, which is reprehensible that the flight crew did not take action previously, the man then really crossed the line.
About 10 minutes before landing, the flight attendants suggested that the parents instead move toward the back of the plane and they began to comply, they said.
It was then that the man headed toward the front of the plane, Jean-Francois said.
But two men seated in business class intervened and jumped on the man, Jean-Francois said. Two others quickly joined in. “They got him on the floor and tied his hands with plastic,” Jean-Francois said.
One of the men, who declined to give his name, said, “He started to head to the cockpit and three of us took him down.”
He said the unruly passenger had been holding what looked like a telephone cord and was wielding it like a weapon.With the man restrained, the pilot then came onto the plane’s intercom system about five minutes before landing.“He said, ‘We’re very sorry for what happened’ and apologized for the trouble,” Jean-Francois said.
More Coverage:
December 20th, 2005 at 8:22 pm
[…] No matter what you want to call it, profiling or stereotyping, in this day and age it just may be good common sense. In Australian, men are barred from sitting next to unaccompanied children on flights. Sure there may be an insinuation, but if its a rule for all males could it just be perceived as a guideline in the best interest and welfare of children. Although such a rule would not have prevented this from happening. […]
December 20th, 2005 at 8:37 pm
[…] No matter what you want to call it, profiling or stereotyping, in this day and age it just may be good common sense. In Australian, men are barred from sitting next to unaccompanied children on flights. Sure there may be an insinuation, but if its a rule for all males could it just be perceived as a guideline in the best interest and welfare of children. Although such a rule would not have prevented this from happening. […]