Advertisement

Fellow travelers restrain passenger who was 'going crazy'

A Frontier Airlines jet sits on a taxiway, being de-iced during a heavy snow storm at St. Louis-Lambert International Airport in St. Louis in 2019. File photo by Bill Greenblatt/UPI
A Frontier Airlines jet sits on a taxiway, being de-iced during a heavy snow storm at St. Louis-Lambert International Airport in St. Louis in 2019. File photo by Bill Greenblatt/UPI | License Photo

Feb. 6 (UPI) -- Fellow passengers restrained a man who became combative on a Frontier Airlines flight bound for Houston on Wednesday, kicking the seats and breaking a Plexiglass window.

The flight departed from Denver and had been in the air for about a half hour when the man allegedly became enraged after a female passenger sitting in front of him asked the man to switch seats.

Advertisement

Passenger Victoria Clark said the man started kicking the seat and tried to break a window.

"I started having a panic attack," Clark told ABC News. "[I thought] it could be a terrorist attack," she said.

The man did eventually break the window at which point flight attendants asked if there were any law enforcement officers on board. The airline said there was no air marshal on the flight, but passenger and military veteran Tanner Phillips tried to help.

"This guy was just going crazy," Phillips told ABC News. "He was screaming in multiple languages, punching out the window and laying back and trying to kick it out. I wanted to help as much as I could."

Advertisement

Phillips and fellow passengers used zip ties and boot laces to restrain the man and put him in his seat as the plane continued on to its destination rather than make an emergency landing.

Flight F9 4856 landed in Houston at about 10:20 p.m. CST. Police had been notified that there was a combative passenger on board and were on the scene at the airport, but since Frontier declined to press charges, officers did not make an arrest. As such, the man's name was not released.

Latest Headlines