Sounds like this guy may have had a bipolar disorder or something. There have been similar incidents in the U.S. in the last couple of years. Remember one where the passenger was killed and another where a rare form of menengitis was blamed for the attack?
Here's more from this morning's Chicago Tribune:
Intruder wrestled from cockpit
By Tom McCann and Oscar Avila, Tribune staff reporters. Tribune staff reporters Dan Mihalopoulos, Rogers Worthington, Matt O'Connor and Flynn McRoberts contributed to this report
Published October 9, 2001
A man stormed into the cockpit of a jet Monday afternoon, throwing the Chicago-bound plane into a momentary dive before crew and passengers tackled the man, binding him with the seat belts used by flight attendants to demonstrate safety procedures.
Two F-16 fighter jets scrambled at supersonic speeds to escort the American Airlines 767 to the ground, while passengers dragged the man to a galley, sat on him and a nurse injected him with a sedative stored in a cockpit kit.
The FBI said Edward A. Coburn, 31, of Fresno, Calif., suffered from an "undetermined mental condition." Airline officials said the episode was not related to terrorism. The plane landed safely as scheduled and no injuries were reported.
But as the nation remains on edge after last month's hijackings, the incident was a chilling reminder of how easy it is for even a single, determined aggressor to get into the cockpit of commercial airliner.
"This passenger wasn't a terrorist. He wasn't carrying a weapon. He's just a guy with mental problems," said Carviz Carols, 30, a nurse from Bloomingdale who injected Coburn with 50 milligrams of Benadryl and 10 milligrams of Valium.
Witnesses said Coburn apparently was hallucinating, yelling that terrorists were steering the plane toward the Sears Tower and that he could see people outside the plane's windows.
"He was spitting and cursing and then praying," said Chris Fredericks, a marketing executive from Los Angeles. "He kept yelling that we were the devil and that we were going to hit the Sears Tower."
"He was thinking he was the hero and we were the evil guys," Carols said.
Charges expected
FBI spokesman Ross Rice said prosecutors planned to charge Coburn Tuesday with interference with a flight crew, a felony. Rice said Coburn was under a doctor's care and may not have taken his medication.
It remained unclear Monday evening exactly how Coburn made it into the cockpit. Last week, American announced plans to install reinforcing bars on its cockpit doors, but installation on the entire fleet wasn't to be completed until early November.
Exhortations to the flying public to stay alert, less than four weeks after hijackers crashed three jetliners into the World Trade Center and Pentagon, apparently paid off, as passengers reacted immediately when flight attendants called for help.
Passengers praised
"It was simply amazing to see what those passengers did. That man was at least 6-foot-2 and so violent," said JoAnn Rockman, a Flossmoor resident who was returning from a California wedding with her husband and 14-year-old son. "But the flight attendant said `Get him,' and, damn it, everyone went up and got him.
"There is never going to be another plane that's just led to slaughter," she added, crying as she came off the jetway into O'Hare.
At least one veteran pilot said the quick response of passengers and military commanders Monday showed that precautions taken in recent weeks have made a difference.
"They scrambled two fighters, got the plane on the ground and took care of this man," said Capt. Tom Bloom, chairman of the Chicago chapter of the Allied Pilots Association. "The system worked."
During the disturbance, the pilot sent a distress signal to air traffic controllers at O'Hare. The FAA, in turn, notified the North American Aerospace Defense Command, which scrambled the fighter jets as part of the combat air patrols the Pentagon ordered in the wake of the Sept. 11 attacks. The sonic booms triggered by the F-16s echoed throughout Chicago's northwest and north suburbs, startling thousands.
"It scared the daylights out of me. I was afraid it was a plane crash," said Denise Heppel of Rolling Meadows, who ran out of her house to see the airliner, flanked by the fighter jets.
It was not long after Flight 1238 took off from Los Angeles with 153 passengers and 9 crew members that some began to notice Coburn, a man with sandy blond hair, wearing a T-shirt, jeans and brown work boots, sitting in row 21 next to his father. Throughout the flight, Coburn was whispering and talking abnormally, said Mark Jacoby, an accountant from Los Angeles who sat in the row behind them.
A passenger sitting next to Coburn asked for a different seat, and the father gave a flight attendant a note explaining Coburn's illness, Jacoby said.
"He kept moving from one seat to another, and he just kept talking and whispering for no apparent reason," Jacoby said.
Warning signs
Flight attendants were even asking passengers to help subdue him in case he got out of control, Jacoby added. The FBI later said there was no air marshal on board.
Then as the plane was about 40 minutes from landing at O'Hare, the man got up from his seat, ran through the aisle, burst into the cockpit and grabbed the pilot, passengers said.
The plane immediately lurched downward, said JoAnn Rockman's husband, Howard Rockman, an attorney. "We've experienced turbulence before, but never anything like this," he said. "We just went down. It scared to death every single passenger on the plane."
But within seconds, as many as 10 passengers and crew members pounced on him, pulled him out of the cockpit and wrestled him to the ground.
Fredericks strapped the man's ankles together with three seat belts while several other passengers sat on the man and tied his wrists with plastic ties and seat belts looped through his belt.
"I immediately thought we were being hijacked," Fredericks said. "Before I could think, I started running for him. I wasn't going to sit down for a second."
Jacoby tried to get out of his seat but was knocked out of the way by another passenger rushing to help. All the while, Fredericks said the man thrashed wildly about, yelling that the plane was about to crash into the Sears Tower.
"First the man blew right by me, and then the passengers were right on his tail," said Kevan Lyon, a San Diego book distributor sitting in first class. "It's like the passengers just knew what to do by instinct. Over the last few weeks, we've been trained to do this."
Adrian Coorey, a law student from Sydney, was awakened by the man's yelling, but he was gripped by fear.
"I took off my seat belt to help, but then I just froze," he said. "Ladies were just crying. People thought they were going to die."