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Luckily There Was A Brave 300-Pound Man On That JetBlue Flight
By
John Del Signore
Published Mar 29, 2012
Modified Mar 29, 2012
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By
John Del Signore
Published Mar 29, 2012
Modified Mar 29, 2012
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The next time you're squeezed between Kevin Smith and Jonah Hill on a flight, be grateful: in the event of an emergency, they could come in handy with such tasks as restraining a delusional pilot gone berserk. Look no further than David Gonzalez, the retired NYC Corrections officer who's in the national spotlight after he brought down JetBlue Captain Clayton Osbon on Tuesday. Gonzalez and other men tried to restrain Osbon with flex-cuffs, but the pilot broke them. They tied him with belts, but that still wasn't enough. Somebody need to be the hero and sit on him.
Gonzalez, who is 6'4" and weighs in at 300 pounds, tells the Post, "What wound up really happening was I wound up personally sitting on the guy until we landed in Texas." Some people pay good money for that! Gonzalez says he also put Osbon in "a sleeper hold" in an attempt to subdue him. When the flight landed in Amarillo, the other passenger offered to buy him a beer, but Gonzalez doesn't drink. "It was a difficult time," says Gonzalez. "But it was something I had to go through. I was just glad I was able to do it."
Meanwhile, more details emerged about the bizarre episode. Here's an excerpt from a statement sent out by the U.S. Attorney's Office:
"As the plane was leaving JFK and climbing in altitude in its scheduled five-hour flight, Osbon said something to the first officer about being evaluated by someone, but the FO [first officer] did not know what he meant. Osbon then talked about his church and the need to 'focus' and asked the FO to take the controls and work the radios. Osbon began talking about religion, but, according to the FO, his statements were not coherent."
The FBI agent said in his affidavit: "The FO became concerned when Osbon said, 'things just don't matter.' Osbon yelled over the radio to air traffic control and instructed them to be quiet. Osbon turned off the radios in the aircraft and started dimming his monitors. Osbon sternly admonished the FO for trying to talk on the radio. The FO became really worried when Osbon said, 'we need to take a leap of faith.'
Osbon started trying to correlate completely unrelated numbers like different radio frequencies, and he talked about sins in Las Vegas. At one point, Osbon told the FO 'we're not going to Vegas'. Osbon began giving what the FO described as a sermon." The first officer, "concerned with Osbon's behavior," suggested they invite an off-duty JetBlue captain into the cockpit, the FBI agent said in the affidavit. But Osbon abruptly left the cockpit, without following security protocol, which "alarmed the rest of the crew," the FBI agent said.
"When the flight attendants met with him at the front fallery to find out if anything was wrong, Osbon aggressively grabbed a flight attendant's hands," according to the affidavit. "Osbon banged on the lavatory door and told a female passenger who was inside that he needed to go to the bathroom." While Osbon he was in the lavatory, a flight attendant brought the off-duty captain to the cockpit where he stayed the rest of the flight, the FBI agent said. When Osbon left the lavatory, he talked with flight attendants about "150 souls on board."
We know from witness accounts that Osbon sprinted up and down the aisle and started banging on the cockpit door, screaming about Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan, a bomb, and the need for everyone to say the Lord's prayer. "I NEED THE CODE! I NEED THE CODE!" Osbon screamed, according to one witness we spoke with the day of the flight. He faces up to 20 years in prison on a charge of interfering with the flight crew.
Here's the full affidavit from the FBI officer who interviewed the passengers and crew after the flight landed in Texas:
Complaint and affidavit against Capt. Clayton Frederick Osbon
Tagged
clayton osbon
flight 191
freak out
jet blue captain
jetblue
John Del Signore
Originally from the Albany area, John Del Signore has called NYC home since 1995. In addition to his thousands of meticulously-crafted bespoke blog posts for Gothamist, his writing has also been published in The Awl, Deadspin, The Nervous Breakdown, and performed at The Brick Theater in Brooklyn.
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Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
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