A male passenger was arrested and later released after disrupting a flight from Chicago to Hong Kong by smearing his own feces on the walls of the plane’s bathroom walls on Thursday.
According to Alaskan TV outlet KTVA, United Airlines flight 895 had to be redirected to Anchorage, Alaska, on Thursday evening after the passenger smeared excrement on the bathroom wall, and also poured water and soda all over the plane’s seats.
The passenger — who is 21- to 22-years-old — was reportedly released from jail in Evansville, Indiana, two days prior to the incident, and his family bought him a one-way ticket to Vietnam so that he could live with other family members.
Tri Nguyen told KTVA he was helping the passenger take the plane to Vietnam because he “doesn’t speak English very well,” and that when they arrived at the airport in Chicago, he thought that he would be calm and sleep throughout the 15-hour flight. He thought wrong.
When they got on the plane, the young man began acting restless and demanded to talk to the pilot, saying he wanted to go home.
This is the point in the story where things really started going south.
After the flight was in the air, the passenger went to one of the bathrooms, pushed away a boy who was waiting in line, and started playing with the door’s “occupy” sign.
The purser intervened, but the passenger was soon trying to push in the bathroom door.
Another passenger, BJ Canup, told the KTVA: “You didn’t know what he was going to do, he was going from very hyper, to being very calm, to being very hyper.
“Once he went in there, he stayed a long time and I knew there was a problem. The purser stayed and went back to check on him, and that’s when you could see that he pulled his shirt off, and actually taken his shirt and put it into the toi[let], and then I don’t know if he was trying to clean it off the walls, or if he took the crap and put it on the walls, but either way we had a major mess in the bathroom after that.”
Nguyen then intervened, trying to calm down the passenger and take him back to his seat. However, he continued to be disruptive, pouring water and soda on the seats around him. Nguyen told the network that “three big guys” came in and had to stand around the passenger while others sitting nearby had to be moved.
Later, three other male passengers were asked to sit near the subject to ensure he stayed calm.
“These are the real #heros right here,” @united passenger BJ Canup said. “These men kept the young man calm as we landed in #Anchorage.”
Enrico Millo, Zach Baker, Evans Mendonca & Tri Nguyen kept #UnitedAirlines disruptive passenger calm. @ktva pic.twitter.com/uvujJgFFt5— SCOTT GROSS (@13ScottGross) January 5, 2018
After the plane landed in Anchorage, the passenger was met by FBI agents and airport police at the plane, and he was taken to Providence Hospital for a psych evaluation. No charges were filed.
Said Nguyen: “Hopefully they will treat him and help him, you know, that’s what I wish, because he’s young, he needs to change.”
United Airlines said they provided all 245 customers on board with hotel accommodation, and is working to ensure passengers get to their destinations as soon as possible.
The Boeing 777, which was grounded overnight for maintenance, left Anchorage at 2pm on Friday. According to FlightAware.com, the plane landed in Hong Kong on Saturday at around 7:09pm.
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