2 arrested for disturbances on separate flights
Two people are in custody today for being unruly on two separate flights into and out of Chicago Sunday.
In the first incident, a passenger was subdued after he was banging on the cockpit door and shouting, said officials from the San Francisco Police Department.
The incident took place on Flight 1561 from Chicago to San Francisco at 9:10 p.m. Sunday.
The man was wrestled to the ground and handcuffed in front of 162 passengers on the flight.
Regeit Almurisi, 28, was arrested at the San Francisco International Airport by police, and faces federal charges of interfering with a flight crew.
He is being held at San Mateo County Jail.
In the earlier incident, a flight bound for O'Hare International Airport was forced to make an emergency landing in St. Louis Sunday afternoon after a passenger tried to open a door mid-flight, officials said.
The Continental Airlines flight was on its way from Houston when a 34-year-old Burbank man attempted to open a door near the front of the plane at about 1:15 p.m. before being choked out by another passenger.
The FBI, who was questioning the man Sunday night along with the Lambert-St. Louis International Airport Police, said the incident does not appear to be related to terrorism.
The agency will not be releasing information on why the man attempted to open the door, but is working with the U.S. attorney's office on possible federal charges, according to an FBI statement released Sunday night.
Other passengers and flight attendants on Continental flight No. 546 subdued the man, and the plane landed safely at Lambert St. Louis International Airport at 1:25 p.m., Lunsford said.
Officials said it would have been very difficult, if not impossible, for the man to open the door during the flight.
Members of the Transportation Security Administration and local law enforcement met the plane on the runway and took the man into custody, officials said.
Police said the man got up 20 minutes after takeoff, walked toward the front of the plane and said he needed to get off the plane.
When police boarded the plane in St. Louis, they found the man on the floor being detained by a flight attendant and two passengers, according to Lambert spokesman Jeff Lea.
Passengers on the plane told ABC7 the 34-year-old man was in a restroom near the front of the plane for a long time before trying to open the door. That was before Houston resident Tony Harris, a 60-year-old Chicago native with a military and martial arts background, tackled the passenger.
“I hear a scream from the stewardess, and I see her fly across the thing. So I go running and I see this guy with his hands on the door, and these two guys trying to hold him, and this guy was a bull,” Harris told ABC 7. “So what I did was jump on his back and put him in a choke.”
No charges had been filed as of early Sunday evening.
The flight continued on to Chicago about an hour after the emergency landing in St. Louis.