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AMARILLO, Texas — A panic attack led a JetBlue pilot to act erratically, causing his flight to make an emergency landing in Amarillo, Texas, law enforcement officials said on Wednesday.
Flight 191 was bound from New York to Las Vegas on Tuesday with 131 passengers and six crew members on board when Captain Clayton Osborn suddenly turned unruly. The FAA said the co-pilot managed to lock Osbon out of the cockpit after his behavior turned bizarre.
Passenger Paul Babakitius, a former New York City police officer, said he saw Capt. Osbon run down the aisle, but wasn’t sure why — at first.
Another passenger, Mark Sellouk, said Osbon began banging on the cockpit door yelling, “Bring the throttle to idle! Bring the throttle to idle! Bring it to idle! We’re going down, we’re all going to die. Pray to Jesus! Open this god**** door!”
A flight attendant tried to intervene, but was pushed out of the way.
“We’re talking about a guy about 6 foot 3, 6 foot 4, about 260 pounds, solid as a rock, short cropped hair, bent with a cause, which we don’t know what his cause is,” Babakitis said.
When Osbon couldn’t make it into the cockpit, he went for the door. That’s when another passenger, David Gonzalez, took action.
“I said, ‘I can’t let this guy open the door up here,'” Gonzalez said. “So that’s when I said, ‘What’s your problem?’ He goes, ‘You gotta pray to God, you gotta pray to God, Iran and Iraq,’ and I said, ‘Look man, I don’t have time for that,’ so I just choked him.”
Others joined in the effort to take down Osbon.
“A couple of guys just took him down,” Sellouk said. “We had to subdue the guy. About six of us came into the picture, we got him by his legs, we got him by his arms, by his face, by his head.”
It took nearly 30 minutes for Flight 191 to make it to Amarillo for the emergency landing. Osbon was taken to an area hospital in restraints and was reportedly talking gibberish.
Osbon has been a commercial pilot since 1989. JetBlue Chief Executive Officer Dave Barger said Obson is a “consummate professional” with not history of trouble.
After Tuesday’s episode, Osbon has been charged with interfering with crew member instructions and remains at a medical facility in Amarillo, Texas, in FBI custody.
