A jetBlue flight heading from New York (JFK) to Las Vegas had to be diverted due to an unruly passenger early Saturday morning.
I just heard about the incident in an e-mail from Gothamist which included a video from ABC News.
The flight took off at 6:20 AM and the passenger “lost it” around 90 minutes in. He was flying with family members and started yelling at everyone onboard. One passenger said the man woke up out of nowhere and started flipping out.
In the video you can hear the man’s daughter repeatedly asking him to stop it as he got up and lunged at flight attendants trying to calm him down. Just as this happened, the flight attendants quickly subdued and cuffed him.
The flight was diverted to Detroit and the passenger was brought to Oakwood Hospital by the police.
Passengers were forced to sit on the tarmac for 2 hours before taking off for Las Vegas.
Check out the ABC News Video:
ABC US News | ABC Celebrity News
Check out the Gothamist article here where I first heard about the story.
Could be one of those bad Ambien reactions, given that he was sleeping. The reality is that this happens to people everyday – mental illness, bad reaction to drugs or alcohol, etc. It is statistically going to happen on airplanes too – no way to avoid that. Heck, it even happened to a JetBlue pilot a few years back. Glad that the flight crew handled it well and everyone was safe.
Ambien could be a possible cause for the guys sudden outburst but these things seem to be happening on flights way too often. The way the crew handled the situation really was impressive.