SAN FRANCISCO — An unruly passenger who was subdued by flight attendants and passengers on a flight from Chicago to San Francisco was a US resident with a Yemeni passport, police said Monday.
The man, named as Rageit Almurisi, was charged with interfering with flight crew on the American Airlines flight after banging on the cockpit door Sunday. He was restrained by flight attendants and cuffed until the plane landed safely at San Francisco Airport.
Authorities have not established a possible motive for why Almurisi, 28, got up from his seat and went toward the cockpit door 10 minutes before the flight was supposed to land, San Francisco police Sgt. Michael Rodriguez said.
But Rodriguez told the San Francisco Chronicle that Almurisi had no clear connection to terrorism.
Almurisi was yelling unintelligibly as he brushed past a flight attendant, Rodriguez said.
A male flight attendant tackled him, and other crew members and two passengers — a retired Secret Service agent and a retired San Mateo police officer — aided as he banged on the cockpit door, Rodriguez said.
“They were able to get him to ground and a flight attendant put him in plastic handcuffs,” Rodriguez told The Associated Press.
The Boeing 737 carrying 162 people landed safely at 9:10 p.m. and the man was taken into police custody. The flight came from Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport, the San Francisco Chronicle reported.
Though he carried a Yemeni passport, it wasn’t clear if Almurisi’s nationality was also Yemeni, Rodriguez said.
During the scuffle, Almurisi sustained some bruises and was checked at a hospital before being transported to San Mateo County Jail, the officer said.
No one else on the plane was hurt and the airport continued operating normally with security levels unchanged, the officer said.
It was the third disturbance of the day in U.S. airspace.
The incident came hours after a passenger on a flight from Houston was wrestled to the ground when he tried to open the door on the plane. The Continental airlines flight bound for Chicago was diverted to St Louis when the 34-year-old man ran to the door saying he had to get off.
He was subdued by 60-year-old US army veteran Tony Harris, who told the Chicago Tribune he used a mixed-martial-arts-style chokehold to bring the man to the ground, rendering him unconscious.
Harris said the man told him he had had “a rough Mother’s Day” when he was asked why he wanted to get off the plane.FBI and airport police questioned the passenger. No charges have been filed.
Continental spokeswoman Julie King said Flight No. 546 landed around 1:30 p.m. Sunday and was grounded about an hour in St. Louis before resuming it journey.
Shortly before that, a Delta Air Lines flight from Detroit to San Diego was landed instead in Albuquerque, N.M., because of a security scare, but authorities found “no suspicious devices” on the plane, an FBI spokesman said.
Agency spokesman Frank Fisher declined to clarify the nature of the “potential security threat” that caused Flight 1706 to land in New Mexico. He said agents searched the plane and interviewed the crew and 107 passengers before clearing the aircraft to fly again.
Albuquerque International Sunport spokesman Daniel Jiron also declined to say what the potential threat was. No one was arrested.
The flight was diverted Sunday morning, and Jiron said it was cleared to fly again around 12:30 p.m.
With AP and Newscore