A father of three prevented a potential tragedy with his quick action on a flight last week.
According to the U.K.’s Mirror, 35-year-old Phillip O’Brien was on a Jet2 flight from Cyprus to Manchester, England, when a passenger allegedly stripped to her underwear.
The passenger attempted to storm the cockpit twice and screamed, “Allahu Akbar,” a phrase meaning “Allah is the greatest” that has been used by Muslim terrorists during violent attacks.
She had alleged there were explosives on board, and she asked children who were with her whether they were “ready to die.”
O’Brien was able to get the woman in a hold, and crew members eventually helped secure her in a chair, the Mirror reported.
“Everything was normal and then shortly after take-off a woman walked up the aisle naked and banged on the cockpit door shouting ‘Allahu Akbar,’” O’Brien said.
“As you can imagine everyone was s***ing themselves.”
O’Brien said he first questioned why the staff on board the plane had not stopped the woman.
“I spoke to staff and said, ‘Why have you not put her to the floor?’” O’Brien said.
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The staff reportedly told O’Brien they were not able to restrain the woman. O’Brien, who has worked in security in the past, said he could.
“So when the woman went to the cockpit again I took control, took her to the ground and at that point the pilot did an emergency landing to Paris,” O’Brien said.
The woman allegedly said her parents were members of the terror group ISIS. Her behavior suggested she may have been suffering from a mental illness.
After restraining her, O’Brien asked her why she was trying to storm the cockpit. He said she told him, “If I didn’t there’s going to be an explosion, and everybody is going to die.”
Jet2 confirmed the flight landed in Paris so a “disruptive passenger could be offloaded,” the Mirror reported.
A woman who was a passenger on the flight spoke to the U.K.’s Daily Mail about her experience.
“I was more worried about my daughter — she was so scared, she had a massive panic attack,” the woman said. “You were just terrified of what she was going to do when you closed your eyes.”
She said the woman’s strange behavior began just 10-15 minutes after the flight took off and lasted for hours.
“It was just crazy,” the passenger told the Mail. “At first it looked like she was drunk — she had the suitcase on her head. The cabin crew said she wasn’t drunk as they had smelt her breath. I don’t know how she got through security.”
