Flight attendant hailed as hero

May 29 2003

A flight attendant stabbed by a man on board a domestic flight has been hailed as a hero by a passenger who helped overpower the attacker.

Keith Charlton was travelling on a Qantas flight from Melbourne to Launceston when a man armed with wooden stakes stabbed two attendants.

Mr Charlton was seated in the third aisle of plane when a man in a brown suit raced past him.

He's told Sky News the man was holding aloft two sharpened wooden stakes, and he stabbed the chief flight attendant, known to passengers as Greg.

Mr Charlton says Greg was a hero, because he put his head down into the man's chest and pushed him back down the plane.


At that point Mr Charlton says he helped, along with a number of other male passengers, to subdue the attacker.

Mr Charlton says the man was completely silent during the attack.

The attacker was restrained with plastic ties and bundled between two seats until the flight could make an emergency landing back in Melbourne.

AAP

www.smh.com.au/articles/2003/05/29/1054177668239.html