Passengers key in ending in-flight threat

Herald news services

MIAMI — Weary but grateful, the passengers of American Airlines Flight 63 arrived at Miami International Airport just before dawn Sunday, relieved that their resolve had apparently averted what could have been a midair catastrophe.

Even before the Boeing 767 reached its cruising altitude, some passengers said, they had noticed a tall, unkempt man who was acting restless and appeared to be out of place, and they sensed that something was not right.

He reportedly was overheard conversing with a crew member in Arabic, but also appeared to speak perfect English, passengers said. The suspect, who authorities say was carrying a British passport that identified him as Richard Colvin Reid — and later identified by French authorities as Tariq Raja of Sri Lanka —— took his seat in row 29 near the middle of the plane.

"My wife told me at the beginning that this guy looked strange," said Eric Debry, 41, who was traveling with his wife for a vacation in Key West with their two sons. Later, when lunch was served, Debry said, "He refused to eat, and the hostess said, ‘Are you on a diet?’ And he said, ‘Well, not entirely.’ "

"He looked like he was on something," said Monique Danison, 20, heading home to California after a study program in France. "I remember thinking, if he’s a terrorist, he’s a moron because he stood out when I saw him."

Once the passengers’ suspicions proved justified, a number of them recalled Sunday, they acted quickly.

"It was like everybody knew what they needed to do," said Thierry Dugeon, a 36-year-old Paris resident, as he described the confrontation with a passenger believed to have been trying to ignite explosives hidden in his high-top basketball shoes on the flight from Paris to Miami.

The plane, with 183 passengers and about 14 crew members on board, was diverted and escorted safely to Boston’s Logan International Airport by two F-15 fighter jets. It landed at 12:50 p.m. Sunday.

According to an FBI statement, the incident began about an hour and half into the flight when a flight attendant, Hermis Moutardier, smelled a burning match. When she confronted Reid, he put the match in his mouth.

Moutardier told the captain and returned to see Reid with a lighted match held to the tongue of his sneaker. She then noticed wires protruding from Reid’s sneakers and grabbed at them as he shoved her into the bulkhead.

Reid bit a second flight attendant, Cristina Jones, on the hand, the FBI said.

"I heard the stewardess say, ‘I need some help, I need some help,’ said Dugeon, who was seated in row 39, 10 rows behind the man. "Everybody was trying to grab and hold whatever part of his body we could."

The stewardess continued to cry for help, and a crew member told passengers, "We need some big guys back there, real quick."

One passenger said he reached over the seat and pulled Reid’s arm back. Two others grabbed his legs while burning material was wrested from his hand. Others jumped over fellow passengers and raced to help. Several passengers reportedly poured water on the suspect, who warned at one point that he was "wired," while someone threatened him with a fire extinguisher.

"It’s three months after Sept. 11. Of course, the first thing you think is something like terrorism," Dugeon said. "It’s pure instinct, it goes so fast."

One of the crew members collected belts from the passengers to tie the man to his seat. "We got 20 belts from all the passengers," Debry said. "There was a marvelous collection."

One man pulled back Reid’s hair while two French doctors used sedatives from the plane’s medical kit to incapacitate him.

"He was unbelievably strong," said Kwame James, a 6-foot, 8-inch professional basketball player who with two other passengers kept the suspect subdued in his seat for the rest of the flight. "We just pretty much held him from his shoulders and his upper body so he couldn’t make any rapid movements."

James said he and other passengers asked Reid what he had been trying to do.

"He said, ‘We’ll see,’ or ‘You’ll see,’ or something to that extent," James said.

Most of the passengers, while scared, didn’t realize Reid apparently had explosives in his shoe. They thought he was simply a drunk or drug addict who had gotten out of hand.

Some passengers described the remainder of the flight as somewhat tense. Some people laughed at the movie, the comedy "Legally Blonde," but a few looked at their fellow passengers wondering if there were accomplices.

"Some thought this was a terrorist attack," passenger Geoffrey Bessin said. "A lot of others thought it was taken care of, and nothing bad happened, so let’s go back to our movie. It was pretty relaxed, actually, at least where I was sitting."

At Boston, a SWAT team stormed the airplane and took Reid into custody.

On the early-morning, resumed flight out of Boston on Sunday, the passengers of Flight 63 said the security screening at Logan was extremely thorough.

"When reboarding they went through everything," Bissen said. "They went through our bags, they made us take our shoes off, but nobody complained."

The flight touched down at Miami International Airport shortly after 6 a.m. Sunday — 15 hours late, one passenger short and more than 24 hours after their journey began. Weary and grateful travelers fell into the arms of friends and family members, who had expected them Saturday on a direct flight from Charles de Gaulle Airport in Paris.

"This will be the best Christmas ever," said passenger Peter Ensink, a Swiss salesman.

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