LAS VEGAS — The CEO and president of JetBlue says the captain who ranted about a bomb on a flight to Las Vegas is a “consummate professional” whom he has “personally known” for years.
In a Wednesday interview with NBC’s Matt Lauer, who identified the captain as Clayton Osbon, JetBlue’s Dave Barger said there is nothing in the captain’s record to indicate he could be a risk.
Passengers aboard the New York to Las Vegas flight first noticed something wrong when the plane’s top pilot came out of the cockpit, didn’t close the door and tried to force his way into an occupied bathroom.
The JetBlue captain’s co-workers tried to calm him as he became more jittery, coaxing him to the back of the plane while making sure — above all — that he didn’t get back near the plane’s controls.
Then, he sprinted up the cabin’s aisle — ranting about a bomb, screaming “They’re going to take us down!” and urging confused passengers to pray.
“Nobody knew what to do because he is the captain of the plane,” said Don Davis, the owner of a Ronkonkoma, N.Y.-based wireless broadband manufacturer who was traveling to Sin City for a security industry conference.
“You’re not just going to jump up and attack the captain,” Davis said.
But four men did tackle the pilot, pinning him to the floor for more than 20 minutes while the co-pilot and an off-duty pilot who was aboard landed the plane in Amarillo, Texas.
“Clearly, he had an emotional or mental type of breakdown,” said Tony Antolino, a security executive who sat in the 10th row of the plane and tackled the pilot when he tried to re-enter the cockpit.
Josh Redick, who was sitting near the middle of the plane, said the captain seemed “irate” and was “spouting off about Afghanistan and souls and al-Qaida.”
The airline described the incident as a “medical situation” involving the captain of JetBlue Airways Flight 191 from New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport. Airline officials said he was taken to a hospital.
Gabriel Schonzeit, who was sitting in the third row, said the captain said there could be a bomb onboard the flight.
“He started screaming about al-Qaida and possibly a bomb on the plane and Iraq and Iran and about how we were all going down,” Schonzeit told the Amarillo Globe-News.
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The Federal Aviation Administration said the co-pilot had locked the cockpit.
An off-duty airline captain who was a passenger on the flight entered the flight deck and took over the duties of the ill captain before landing in Amarillo, the airline said in a statement.
The FBI was coordinating an investigation with the airport police, Amarillo police, the FAA and the Transportation Safety Administration, said agency spokesman Lydia Maese in Dallas. She declined to comment on arrests.
The flight left New York around 7 a.m. and was in the air for 3 1/2 hours before landing in Texas.