Travel News - B6 JFK-LAS Lands at AMA After Captain freakout?

http://dfw.cbslocal.com/2012/03/27/jetblue-plane-makes-emergency-landing-in-amarillo-after-co-pilot-disrupts-flight/

AMARILLO (CBSDFW.COM) – A JetBlue plane headed from New York to Las Vegas made an unscheduled landing in Amarillo Tuesday after the captain started acting erratically.

JetBlue flight 191 landed in Amarillo at 10 Tuesday morning.

A passenger on the plane tells CBS News that about two hours into the flight, one of the co-pilots left the cockpit to go to the restroom.

A federal government official tells CBS the captain became incoherent, which caused the co-pilot to become concerned. According to the official, the co-pilot convinced the captain to leave the cockpit and then locked him out.

While he was gone, another JetBlue pilot who was traveling on the plane entered the cockpit and took over the other man’s duties...

I know someone who knows someone on that flight. They said the captain looked like he had a complete breakdown and was shouting and ranting and raving in the cabin and pax had to subdue him.

A passenger was quoted has having heard "bomb" on CNN. The Captain is also reported to have uttered the A word and the I word.

From Amarillo Globe-News: (http://amarillo.com/news/latest-news/2012-03-27/jet-blue-captains-medical-condition-forces-emergency-landing)When the pilot began pounding on the cockpit door, a former prison security guard grabbed him by the neck and choked the captain until he collapsed, Schonzeit said. “We all knew in the front rows if he got back in the cockpit, we were going down,” Schonzeit said. The captain started pounding on the door when another passenger, a former prison security guard, grabbed the pilot by the neck and choked him until he collapsed.

“The pilot was a very large man, bigger than me,” said Schonzeit, who stands 6 feet, 3 inches and weighs 250 pounds. A flight attendant was elbowed in the ribs during the struggle to keep the captain subdued, Schonzeit said. The passengers tried to bind the captain’s wrists behind his back with a zip tie, but he broke it, Schonzeit said. “I couldn’t have broken those,” Schonzeit said.

Passengers handed over their belts to bind the pilot’s arms, Schonzeit said. Another Captain, traveling off duty on Flight 191, entered the flight deck prior to landing at Amarillo, and took over the duties of the ill crewmember once on the ground,” JetBlue’s statement said. The Airbus A320 jet departed at 7:28 a.m. from New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport Airport, JetBlue said.

Since this is an airline-specific story, let's follow here:

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/jetblue-trueblue/1329544-jetblue-captain-has-inflight-meltdown-locked-out-flight-deck-flight-diverted.html

cblaisd
Moderator, Travel News