A male passenger on board a Delta flight to New York was detained after he tried to enter the cockpit on July 3, according to multiple reports.
Daily Mail reported that during the flight, the 30-year-old man, Carlos Ramirez Rodriguez, became very aggressive and started shouting claiming that he was God and he would end terrorism, all while trying to get into the aircraft cockpit, according to Puerto Rico police.
Deranged passenger arrested for trying to break into cockpit https://t.co/qVkfRglm6x pic.twitter.com/fUhAtuGt6s
— New York Post (@nypost) July 3, 2019
“I am God. Tomorrow San Juan is going to disappear. I came to save the world, and I’m going to end terrorism,” Rodriguez was heard yelling, according to authorities. Rodriguez attempted to get into the cockpit, but the door to the cockpit remained closed and secured during the incident.
The New York Post reported that members of the cabin crew managed to subdue and detain Rodriguez with the help of a few passengers. Following the incident, the pilots took the flight back to San Juan, Puerto Rico, where Rodriguez was taken into police custody following his disembarkment. There were roughly 160 passengers on the Boeing 737-900ER, along with 6 crew members, according to Daily Mail.
“Delta applauds the quick action and professionalism of the crew of Delta flight 579,” the airline said in a statement, according to The Telegram. “The flight attendant crew swiftly restrained the individual with help from some customers.”
New York Post reported that the passengers on the flight were quite disturbed and frightened by the 30-year-old man’s outburst, and some were even left shocked and in tears after their arrival in New York.
Two passengers—a couple—were so scared during the incident that they did get back on the plane, and ended up opting to take another flight to New York altogether, said Estela Llanes, a passenger on the plane, according to New York Post.
“We were all pretty nervous,” Llanes said. “Nobody knew what to do. Everybody was jumping up out of their seats trying to figure out what was going on.”
Another passenger, Moraima Garcia Rohena, a psychologist on a trip to New York for a vacation, said that Rodriguez got up and walked to the front of the plane while the aircraft was still climbing in altitude. She said that the flight attendants stopped him when he got to the middle of aircraft and told him that he couldn’t be up and walking while the flight was taking off.
“He didn’t stop, he continued. The flight attendants—three of them—stood up and told him he cannot be there. The told him, ‘You need to back off!’ He started saying that he was God and he was preventing a catastrophe on the plane,” Rohena recalled the New York Post.
“Then he tried to open the cockpit door. He banged on it but he couldn’t get it open. The passengers restrained him. One of the flight attendants went to the back to get something to restrain him. The passengers held him down,” Rohena said.
“I thought it was a terrorist attack. I always think the worst when something like this happened in a plane after 9/11,” said Aereida Diaz, a 31-year-old pharmaceutical worker who was on her way to visit her father in New York.
“I was about to beat up the guy myself. He delayed our flight,” said Jacob Colon, a 24-year-old warehouse worker. “This is only my second time on a plane. … I’ve never been on a plane like that and to hear that, my first reaction was to get angry. My second reaction was to worry. I got to go back home to my mother and my siblings.”
Colon commended Delta for their quick response and for turning the flight around and heading back to Puerto Rico.
The Telegram reported that the investigation into this incident was given to the FBI, according to police. The spokeswoman for the FBI, Limary Cruz-Rubio, said that she did not have any further details into the incident, according to New York Post.
