A JetBlue flight from New York to Las Vegas was diverted to Texas on Tuesday after the plane's captain became incoherent and had to be subdued.
JetBlue flight 191, which departed John F. Kennedy International Airport at 7:28 a.m., was diverted to Amarillo due to what the airline called "a medical situation involving the captain."
According to CBSNewYork.com citing a federal official, the co-pilot became concerned and "convinced the captain to leave the cockpit and then locked him out." After the captain "started pounding on the cockpit door," he was subdued by an off-duty NYPD officer and an off-duty pilot. The plane landed at 11:11 a.m. in Amarillo, JetBlue said.
Videos purportedly shot by a passenger and uploaded to YouTube show a chaotic scene.
According to Amarillo Globe-News, the FBI in Dallas is investigating the incident. Passengers told the paper that the captain "raced inside an airliner screaming obscenities and shouting about threats from al-Qaida and bombs aboard the aircraft."
He "went to a restroom, then emerged, shouting, 'Iraq, al-Qaida, terrorism, we're all going down," the paper reported.
The captain, whose name has not been released, was "removed from the aircraft and taken to a local medical facility," JetBlue said.
In 2010, Steven Slater, a JetBlue flight attendant, flipped out on a passenger following a landing at JFK, grabbed a beer from the beverage cart and exited the plane via an emergency-evacuation chute.
A JetBlue flight from New York to Las Vegas was diverted to Texas on Tuesday after the plane's captain became incoherent and had to be subdued.