CHICAGO (NewsNation Now) — A traveler who was on an American Airlines flight to Washington, D.C., said there were plenty of warning signs before the plane made an emergency landing in Kansas City on Sunday after an unruly passenger tried to enter the cockpit and open an exit door.
“There were many minutes where we believed that … the plane was going down,” said Mouaz Moustafa, a passenger on the plane. “We (thought) were going to die even without knowing all the details of what was exactly unfolding.”
Moustafa joined the “The Donlon Report” to discuss the incident. He said the incident occurred about two hours into the flight.
“We were going from LA to DC … over two hours into the flight,” Moustafa said, when he noticed something was wrong.
“I could tell there was something going on near the cockpit door. But when the flight attendant came near my seat and was kind of yelling at the flight attendant in the back to turn (on) the lights … I could tell he was agitated.”
Moustafa said, the man made several threats to crew members and other passengers during the flight.
“At one point, he said some somebody on this plane is after me,” Moustafa said. “As he was trying to get into the cockpit and trying to open the emergency door, he was saying, ‘I want to bring this plane down.’ This is a big man, this is someone who was like, six, three, you know, 240 pounds. It was really scary.”
According to an affidavit, the man allegedly caused a disturbance when he walked into the cockpit area holding plastic silverware “like a shank.” He then tried to break a small champagne bottle, kicked a service cart into one of the attendants, and tried to open the plane door.
A flight attendant finally stopped the man by hitting him in the head with a coffee pot. Another passenger helped restrain the man with zip ties and duct tape for the rest of the flight, the affidavit stated.
The plane landed safely at Kansas City International Airport and the suspect, 50-year-old Juan Remberto Rivas, was taken into custody. Rivas was charged Monday with one count of interference with a flight attendant.
Moustafa said Rivas did not seem to be under the influence of drugs or alcohol.
“There was no alcohol served on the plane or anything like that. So it wasn’t that. I don’t know his motivation. And if I had to bet, you know, I would say (it was) some sort of psychological imbalance.”
Moustafa said he was grateful for passengers and the flight attendants who decided to take action against the unruly passenger.
“I give a lot of credit to American Airlines, the crew, and the pilot for how they handled all of it. These people should never fly …”
The incident comes amid a surge in unruly airline passengers over the past year or so — including some who become violent. Earlier this month, Delta Air Lines told the U.S. Department of Justice that any person convicted of a disruption on board a flight should be added to the national “no fly” list.
