A U.S. Marine reacted swiftly after he saw a man trying to open the emergency exit door.
Sergeant Major Jody Armentrout, who has been in the Marines for 20 years, was on a flight from Tokyo to Houston on May 24. He noticed a man behaving strangely. This passenger took his backpack into one of the bathrooms, then came out, went into another bathroom, and then a third one.
“He came out of that one and started walking back and forth in the aisle, which made me alert,” Armentrout, who is based in Japan, told NBC News during a phone call about his All Nippon Airways flight from Tokyo to Houston.
Keeping a close watch on the suspicious passenger, Armentrout, 50, noticed the man looking at the emergency exit door next to him. That’s when the Marine stepped in by standing up and blocking the man’s path to the door.
Armentrout mentioned that he noticed the passenger spin around and dash right through the galley towards another emergency exit. That’s when his instincts and training took over.
“He grabbed a strap from the door, yanked it off, and just then, I tackled him and pushed him down to the ground,” Armentrout explained to NBC News. “Then, an older man who was sitting nearby woke up, stood up, and kind of assisted me.”
Flight attendants gave Armentrout zip ties to secure the man to his seat while the plane made a detour to Seattle-Tacoma International Airport. During this time, Armentrout sat next to the man for the rest of the flight.
“You could really see something was off in his eyes,” Armentrout said about the suspicious passenger.
All Nippon Airways issued a statement about Flight 114, mentioning that a passenger became “unruly” during the flight from Haneda Airport to Houston’s George Bush Intercontinental Airport.
The man was taken off the plane and brought in for questioning, where he was later identified, according to a Port of Seattle Police report obtained by PEOPLE.
The FBI told the officer on duty that they would not be taking the man into custody. Instead, he was taken to a local hospital for “further medical evaluation,” as stated in the report.
“Prosecutors are looking over reports and witness statements to see if the case should go to federal court,” a spokesperson for the FBI Seattle field office told PEOPLE.
There was more than one problem for All Nippon Airways Flight 114 that took off on Saturday morning. While the plane was waiting on the tarmac in Seattle, another passenger who was upset about the flight being diverted punched a bathroom door, according to the FBI’s Seattle office.
The passenger was taken off the flight and has not been named. The FBI stated that as of Tuesday, neither of the passengers faced any charges.
Flight 114 finally arrived in Houston on Saturday at 12:42 pm CDT, as reported by FlightAware.com. Armentrout said, “It was a strange flight.”
On Friday, May 30, Armentrout will fly back to his home base in Japan, and he told the news station that he feels a bit nervous after the last flight.
Because of this, he gave a strong warning to travelers. “I want to make sure everyone knows what kind of time we are living in today and that they need to always be aware of their surroundings,” he said.
