Pick up a stone and you will find a Greek underneath. Diaspora Greek, Paul Babakitis, a retired New York police officer, was one of the JetBlue Flight passengers who helped wrestle the “erratic” captain to the ground.
On Tuesday a JetBlue flight bound for Las Vegas made an emergency landing in Texas on Tuesday after the captain acted strangely, was locked out of the cockpit by his co-pilot and was wrestled to the ground by six to seven hero passengers, witnesses and authorities said.
The plane’s co-pilot, concerned by the “erratic” behavior, locked the door behind the captain when he left the cockpit during the flight, according to the Federal Aviation Administration
“I felt if he got in the cockpit, he was going to try to take that plane down, and not for a safe landing,” Babakitis told CNN.
“I’m not foreign to situations like this, but I don’t expect them at 30,000 feet,” he said. Babakitis and some other passengers reported hearing the captain say the word “bomb” at one point.
Video: Babakitis on CBS
JetBlue Pilot's Outburst Leads to Emergency… από NewsyVideos
Law enforcement met the aircraft, cuffed the pilot, Clayton Osbon, and took him off the plane, Babakitis said. Video showed someone being carried off the plane in a sort of chair.