Washington: Alert passengers on board a United Airlines flight averted a potentially dangerous situation when they subdued a young co-passenger started yelling "jihad! jihad!" and appeared to threaten a hijacking.
United Flight 1074 bound for Denver returned to Dulles International Airport outside Washington, DC last night after passengers pounced on a man who had yelled "jihad! jihad!", according to comments posted on Reddit.
The flight returned to Dulles at around 10:40 pm after a "disturbance onboard," New York Daily News quoted Kimberly Gibbs, a spokeswoman for Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority as saying.
Gibbs said she did not know what happened on the flight. The Boeing 737 was carrying 33 passengers and 6 crew.
Law enforcement personnel met the aircraft at the gate and detained the passenger and took him to a hospital for evaluation, Gibbs said.
Videos posted to Reddit showed a young man with facial cuts who had been subdued by several passengers after witnesses said he had made a run for the plane's cockpit.
A video posted on YouTube shows the passenger being subdued and crying, "I'm sorry", as a voice tells him not to move.preparing to take off again for Denver International Airport.
