- A U.S. Marine of 20 years pinned a man down on an All Nippon Airways flight from Tokyo to Houston when he claims a man tried to open the emergency exit door
- Sergeant Major Jody Armentrout said he was handed zip ties by flight attendants to secure the passenger and sat beside him until the plane landed in Seattle
- That was not the only hiccup in Flight 114’s route, as another passenger punched the lavatory door while the plane was on the tarmac in Seattle
A U.S. Marine acted quickly after noticing a man grab the emergency exit door.
Sergeant Major Jody Armentrout, who has served in the Marines for 20 years, was on a flight from Tokyo to Houston on May 24, when he noticed a man acting suspicious. The fellow passenger took his backpack into one of the lavatories before he walked out, went into a second lavatory, and then a third.
“He came out of that one and began pacing up and down the aisle, so that just threw my radar on,” Armentrout, who is stationed in Japan, told NBC News in a phone interview about his All Nippon Airways flight from Tokyo to Houston.
Keeping a steady eye on the suspicious passenger, Armentrout, 50, said he saw the man eyeing the emergency exit door adjacent to him. That’s when the Marine intervened by standing up and blocking the man’s way to the door.
Armentrout said he saw the passenger turn around and run straight through the galley to another emergency exit door. That’s when Armentrout’s instincts and training kicked in.
“He grabbed a strap around the door, pulled it off, and about that time is when I took him and slammed him, put him on the ground,” Armentrout told NBC News. “And then there was an older gentleman sitting on that side that woke up, and he got up and kind of helped me.”
Flight attendants handed Armentrout zip ties to keep the man secured to the seat while the plane took a detour to Seattle-Tacoma International Airport. In the meantime, Armentrout sat next to the man for the duration of the flight.
“His eyes — you could definitely tell there was something going on,” Armentrout said of the passenger acting suspiciously.
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All Nippon Airways released a statement regarding Flight 114, saying a passenger became “unruly” during the flight with service from Haneda Airport to Houston’s George Bush Intercontinental Airport.
The man was escorted off the plane, where he was brought in for questioning and later identified, according to a Port of Seattle Police report obtained by PEOPLE.
The FBI informed the officer on call that they were not going to place the man into custody. Instead, he was transported to a local hospital where he received “further medical evaluation,” the report states.
“Prosecutors are reviewing reports and witness statements to determine whether the case is appropriate for federal prosecution,” a spokesperson for the FBI Seattle field office told PEOPLE.
That was not the only hiccup for the All Nippon Airways Flight 114 that departed Saturday morning. As the flight sat on the tarmac in Seattle, another passenger who “was frustrated at the flight diversion” punched a lavatory door, the FBI’s Seattle field office reported.
The flight passenger was removed from the flight and has not been identified. The FBI reported that neither flight passenger received charges as of Tuesday.
Flight 114 eventually made it to Houston on Saturday at 12:42 pm CDT, according to FlightAware.com. Armentrout admitted, “It was a weird flight.”
On Friday, May 30, Armentrout will make the trip back to his base in Japan, which he told the news station has him feeling a little anxious after the last flight.
With that, he issued a strong advisory to travelers. “I want to make sure everybody understands what time we are in in this world nowadays and that they need to be aware of their surroundings all the time,” he said.
