Canadian rugby player subdues unruly passenger on flight . .22/01/02 . .When a passenger on board a Czech airlines flight attempted entry into the cockpit a Canadian rugby player jumped into action.
A former Canadian university rugby player has played a hand in subduing an unruly passenger on a flight from Prague to the United Arab Emirates on the weekend.
The Ottawa Citizen reported today that Aaron Matte, 31, was asleep in the business class section of Czech Airlines flight 401 when a flight attendant woke him pleading for his help.
According to Matte – who said her English wasn’t very good, she said: 'There's a man on the plane and we need to catch him.’
She then added: "She said 'when we catch him you fight him.'”
The former Carleton Ravens player leapt into action – going to the upstairs cockpit door and after quickly assessing the situation took action. Two flight attendants were blocking the agitated man – with one of them holding hand cuffs at the ready.
"He was beside the pilot's door chanting 'Allahu Akbar' (God is great) and waving his hands around and I could see something silver glinting in his hands," Matte said.
The first thing that went through the Canadian teacher’s mind was the September 11th terrorist attacks, and also the recent attempt by Richard Reid to set off explosives in his shoes. Also running through his mind was the actions of rugby players Jeremy Glick and Mark Bingham who helped foil the use of Flt 93 as a weapon of destruction by crashing the plane into a field in Pennsylvania.
"The flight attendants probably didn't want to tackle the man by the door themselves in case they didn't succeed," Matte said. "I said 'what?' to him in Arabic, hoping he would snap out of it.
"One of the men reached out to handcuff him. As soon as he tried to resist, I tackled him. I leaned in with my shoulder, grabbed on and didn't let go."
Matte then took off his belt, securing the man’s feet, while instructing other passengers to get the shoes off of him. Matte estimates from the time he awoke to the final belting of the man’s legs took perhaps 45 seconds.
The pilots made an emergency landing in Manama, Bahrain, where authorities arrested the man without further incident. Meanwhile Czech Airlines officials denied that flight crew needed any assistance in subduing the man – a claim refuted by published stories from Mattes fellow passengers in the Gulf Daily News newspaper in Bahrain.
"This incident occurred," said Czech Airlines spokesman Dan Plovajko, "when one of the passengers, after the plane reached cruising altitude, sat in the middle of the aisle and refused to return to his seat.
"The crew took the necessary steps to get the passenger under control, and then made an unscheduled stop in Bahrain, where the passenger was taken off the plane, arrested, and the flight continued. There was never any risk or danger."
Matte, who teaches English at a United Arab Emirates military school, is described as 5’ 6” tall and athletic, while the passenger he subdued was around 6 feet tall and average build.
Despite the incident Matte claims it has not made him nervous about flying, or suspicious of passengers of Middle Eastern descent.
"I live with these people. I know Muslim people. I have many Muslim friends. It angers me when I see the stereotypes that we see in Canada and the West. They are so one-dimensional.
"If you were to know these people like I do you'd realize that they have the same values about safety and family that we do. To sit down and have a meal with a Muslim -- no one could be friendlier."
By Doug Crosse with files from Ottawa Citizen
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