Tartan G - the reaction on the ground certainly sounds OTT - SWAT teams and all that once the a/c had landed safely - but I don't think the crew's reaction in the air, nor the calling out of the F16s, was excessive. With hindsight it turned out to be a harmeless incident, but no one knew that at the time. It could very well have been a diversion for something more sinister - or maybe bin Laden's boys are testing the waters to see if we're all taking security as seriously as we say we are. Who knows.......
Anyway, I would have done exactly the same thing that AC skipper did, except maybe I would have called for the pax to imobilise the guy and make sure he was incapable of doing any harm - read into that what you will.