Ex-Police Officer Helps Subdue Two Men Onboard NWA Flight

What, exactly, happened onboard a recent Northwest Airlines flight from Minneapolis to Boston? That's the question federal investigators are now contemplating, while a former police officer is being called a hero for his role in subduing two passengers.

Boston's WBZ-TV reports Bob Hayden, a retired 28-year veteran police officer and former Lawrence, MA police chief, was a passenger on Northwest Flight 720 this weekend. Hayden says that even before the plane took off, one man started to act strangely -- pacing up and down the aisle, apparently aggravated. A flight attendant forced the man into his seat after he refused to heed the crew's requests to sit down.

After the plane took off, Hayden says the same man began screaming, before falling into the aisle. At first, Hayden says he thought the man was having a heart attack -- but when another man also started acting strangely, pulling luggage out of the overhead bin, it became clear to him something else was going on.

"He jumped out of his chair, laid on the floor, and started thrashing his legs and screaming," Hayden said. "People were nervous. The lady in front of me actually started to cry."

Flight attendants once again helped the screaming man back into his seat... but the passenger continued to yell throughout the rest of the flight. And when the plane's pilot announced the initial descent into Boston, things took yet another suspicious turn.

"They jumped out of their seats again, like something out of "The Manchurian Candidate, and did they're rolling on the floor, and yelling," Hayden said.

With the help of an ex-Marine onboard the flight, Hayden worked to subdue the men.

"We forced one into his seat, and the one on the ground, I flipped him over and landed him on his stomach," Hayden said. The two then buckled both men into their seats, and stood guard over them until the plane arrived at the gate.

Officials then took the men away for questioning, and for psychiatric evaluations. They are not facing charges at this time.

Hayden says he suspects the event was staged. For what reason, however, isn't clear.

Actually, I will give you an example of another “ex-marine”. I think he qualified as being worthless enough to give up his title.

I was going to post this as it’s own thread, but for now, I’ll just respond here.

Last Friday, my nephew and his fiancee, three weeks after burying their daughter (she was five months pregnant when she lost the child, and they had been engaged for 7 months, so it wasn’t shot-gun, it was they were just waiting until he was done with his advanced training for his NG post), were visiting a bar. They had decided to join some friends for some drinks, and when they got there, she caught the eye of the ex-marine.

He decided that my nephew wasn’t good enough for her. So, he went over and asked my soon-to-be niece to go home with him. Apparently, made some other rather crude remarks and made them both very uncomfortable. To show how the NG training helped him with discipline, my nephew and his fiancee decided to leave the bar. The ex-marine followed them into the parking lot, and when the ex-marine grabbed her by the arm, my nephew intervened. My nephew was sucker-punched and knocked to the ground. The ex-marine then grabbed my stb-niece by the throat and tried to remove her clothes. Apparently, he told her he was going to have her in the parking lot. My nephew got up again, and was hit in the head, knocked to the ground, and then, with steel-toed boots, was repeatedly kicked in the head until he was nearly broken. He spent two days in ICU. His skull is fractured, his eye-socket crushed, his jaw is shattered, and he still has boot-marks on his face.

THAT, by my definition, is an ex-marine. A jerk who would viciously attack and beat a National Guard member so that he could rape the NG member’s fiancee’ (she was ALSO in the guard, but had to be medically discharged when she shattered her leg in multiple fractures during training).

And if anyone disagrees that the monster described above is not an ex-marine, then they don’t understand what an honor it is to be one. I wasn’t medically capable of making it, but if I was, I’d have been in the marines.

Paul

From your link:

Hayden, a 65-year-old former police commander, had enlisted a gray-haired gentleman sitting next to him to assist. The man turned out to be a former US Marine. "I had looked around the plane for help, and all the younger guys had averted their eyes. When I asked the guy next to me if he was up to it, all he said was, 'Retired captain. USMC.' I said, 'You'll do,' " Hayden recalled. "So, basically, a couple of grandfathers took care of the situation." We need to reopen enlistment to these guys.

THOSE are men.

I am stunned at the fact that such stories constantly refer to the “floor of the plane “ or the “floor of the building” as the “GROUND”.
If I was in an airplane that was in flight, I sure would not want to be referring to the floor of the plane as the “GROUND”.

What kind of education is my money buying these kids today?

OOOOPS- it’s self-evident.

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