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Passengers restrain man who tried to open plane door
Three passengers worked to pin down the disruptive passenger and used tape to restrain his wrists and legs.
DALLAS - Passengers came together to restrain a disruptive passenger to a seat on a flight from Milwaukee to Dallas-Fort Worth on Tuesday after he tried to open a plane door while it was in the air.
The FBI is investigating the incident on American Airlines flight 1915, but charges have not yet been filed against the Canadian man.
According to an incident report, the unruly passenger made a couple of comments toward a flight attendant and then demanded to get off the flight, lunging at the flight attendant and one of the doors on the plane.
Doug McCright from McKinney was on the Tuesday flight from Milwaukee to DFW. He recalls seeing a man talking to a flight attendant near his row at the front of the plane.
"I could tell that the conversation was not going very well," he recalled.
Mccright says the flight attendant asked the man several times to go back to his seat, but he ignored her.
Mccright says she motioned behind her back for help, so he jumped up and spoke to the man.
"I said, ‘Sir, she wants you to go back to your seat. You need to go back to your seat,’" he recalled. "He turns and he says, ‘I’m getting off this flight! I want off this flight!’"
According to an incident report, the man rushed the flight attendant and lunged for an airplane door, hitting the flight attendant.
McCright says he grabbed him from behind and held him back.
"We’re 30,000 feet in the air flying 300 and something miles an hour. There wasn’t any time to think, you just had to do something right now," he said.
Several other passengers, including Charlie Boris, had the same quick reaction and rushed to the front of the plane.
"The flight attendant that was heading back said that he was trying to open the door, and that’s when I kind of went all in," Boris said.
McCright, Boris and another man taped the man’s hand and feet then held him down for the last 30 minutes of the flight.
When they landed, DFW Airport police and the FBI were waiting for them.
"It was kind of a fight or flight situation," Boris said. "And everyone just really helped and put together effort, and we all get to go to Thanksgiving."
Something McCright is very thankful for, too.
"For me, it wasn’t like there was a choice," he said. "There wasn’t a choice. It had to get done."
The plane landed at DFW Airport shortly after 10 a.m.
DFW Airport Police and the FBI boarded the plane as soon as it landed.
A passenger was still kneeling on the disruptive passenger when law enforcement arrived.
The man was taken away in a wheelchair for a mental evaluation.
The flight attendant injured her wrist and neck during the altercation and had to be transported to the hospital. She has since been released.