CHANTILLY, Virginia (AP) -- A man wearing military fatigues and throwing punches into the air tried to open the exit door of a jet during a cross-country flight on Tuesday night, airline officials and passengers said.

United Airlines Flight 890 from Los Angeles landed as scheduled at Washington Dulles International Airport at 8:35 p.m., said Amy Kudwa, a Transportation Security Administration spokeswoman. No one was injured.

Ken Wolfenberger, of Whittier, California, who was on the flight, told The Associated Press in a telephone interview that he helped subdue the unruly passenger. The man wore patches on his fatigues with special forces and jujitsu champion logos, Wolfenberger said.

The man had been acting strangely for about 20 minutes, then sat up, wrapped belts around his hands and threw punches into the air, Wolfenberger said.

Wolfenberger said he heard a flight attendant yell for help and tell the man, "Sir, get your hand off the handle."

"Any time you hear a flight attendant shout 'please help,' you worry that something pretty bad is going to happen," he said.

Wolfenberger said the man was held down and punched by other passengers as he grabbed the man's leg. Air marshals then came and took custody of the man.

The passenger became unruly about 31/2 hours into the flight, said United spokeswoman Megan McCarthy.

"After the passenger was restrained, the pilot decided to land at Dulles," McCarthy said. "It wasn't an emergency landing."

Airport police and FBI agents met the flight and were interviewing the passenger, said FBI spokeswoman Debbie Wierman.

There were 138 passengers and six crew members on board, McCarthy said.



In todays world if some passenger starts acting crazy like this what would you do? Would you try and restrain him or hope theres an air marshal aboard? would you wait for other passengers before you jumped in or would you try and subdue him quickly?
I'd like to think that I'd jump right in but the first one to go after him is probably the first one he kills if he is armed or just totally deranged. I think i'm going to start taking the train

I read from another source that the nut job was roughed up pretty bad. This is the type of news that needs lot of airplay on Al Jazeera.

I'd yell "Get him!" and hang back until the other guys jumped on him.

I'm right there with you Marco

Our PHorum Heros!!

Maybe the guy thought, he was in the Air Force and was ready to jump out.

dead hero or alive coward? Hmmmmmm......Yep i'll take whichever one gets to live

I think I'd jump him -- first or fifth, whatever. On one flight since 9-11 I was moderately concerned about one passenger for awhile, and I had decided if he made a move that was an obvious agressive act what I was gonna do -- and it involved a pencil. If the sh*t really hit the fan would I, or would I freeze -- maybe you never know 100% until you've been there. I think/hope I'd act.

If it's good enough for Dubya, it's good enough for me. I think I'm a natural born leader of men.

I was wondering how you would work the President of the United States into this. This President, didn't wait for the bad guys, he went out and took out Sadam.

Get back in line. We have a President and I'm quite sure we don't need a "leader" like you.

I wouldn't want to disappoint you. By all means, preserve the illusion of competency. One bad guy is the same as another, I suppose. It would be nice to get the one that ordered the killing of all those Americans, though.

And we will Osama can run but he can't hide forever.

He's got 4 wives and he's been living in a cave for 5 years. I suspect that pretty soon he'll beg us to kill him.

By the way, I think it was uncalled for to impugn my leadership potential. I freely admit that I have never led men in combat but...........oh, never mind.

What everyone has failed to mention is the fact
that it's physically impossible to open a cabin door
while the plane is pressurized and inflight. All
cabin doors open inward before swinging outside
the plane, and when under pressure, each square
inch of the door has 8 pounds of pressure on it,
totalling something like 1200 pounds per door.
How could any mortal man pull something like
that open ? Only when the pressure is equalized
between the cabin and the atmosphere is it possible
to open the cabin doors.

Yeah, the guy was nuts, but there was no way he
was gonna open that door.

Unless it's in the movies. The guy will force the door open and then everyone gets sucked outa the plane!

most people dont realize that and would start to panic immediately if they saw this going on. the dude had to be on some kind of drugs

I flew the other day and believe me, I looked around at the other passengers. I also noticed that most of the men on the flight were watching the potential passengers as we were lining up for the "cattle call" on SWA. I felt rather safe but kept tabs on my child who was not able to sit with me..she sat between 2 large young guys with Buckeye logo on their hats...and I was in the on the other side across the aisle..

I know I would not be able to subdue anyone but by golly I'd get out of the way...