NOT-SO-FRIENDLY SKIES

Unruly Passenger Tries to Stabs Flight Attendant, Open Plane Door, Feds Say

He was tackled and restrained by other passengers on the wild flight.

A Massachusetts man is facing charges after allegedly attempting to open an emergency exit door on a United Airlines flight on Sunday, and later trying to stab a flight attendant with a broken spoon, prosecutors said. During the safety briefing aboard the flight from Los Angeles to Boston, Francisco Severo Torres, 33, leaned over to his seatmate and asked “where on the safety card it showed where the [emergency exit] door handle was located,” according to a criminal complaint. Less than an hour before landing, the crew was alerted that an emergency door had been disarmed. A flight attendant then confronted Torres, who had been spotted lurking around the door earlier. Torres asked the attendant “if there were cameras showing” that he’d tampered with the door, the complaint states. Soon after, Torres approached two crew members to lunge at one of them with “a shiny object,” later found to be the handle portion of a metal spoon, hitting the attendant in the neck three times. He was tackled and restrained by other passengers, and upon landing charged with one count of interference and attempted interference with flight crew members and attendants using a dangerous weapon, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Massachusetts.