Plane diverted to Anchorage after passenger threats
ANCHORAGE - A Boeing 747 en route from Minneapolis to Tokyo was diverted to Anchorage on Thursday and searched by bomb-sniffing dogs after an unruly passenger claimed to be a terrorist, according to the FBI.
The plane remained in Anchorage overnight and its passengers were put up in local hotels, said Mary Beth Schubert, a spokeswoman for Northwest Airlines in Minneapolis.
The plane left Anchorage for Tokyo this morning.
Matthew Leggett, 42, of Houston was arrested on felony charges of interfering with a flight crew, said Eric Gonzalez, a special agent in the Anchorage office of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Leggett was taken into custody by airport police without incident and was taken to Alaska Psychiatric Institute, Gonzalez said.
"He was pretty calm as he left the plane," Gonzalez said.
Gonzalez said 333 passengers and 18 crew members were aboard Northwest Airlines Flight 19. While in the air, passengers complained that Leggett was bothering them, and a flight attendant tried to talk to him, Gonzalez said.
"He made some threatening gestures, snapping his fingers in the face of the flight attendant," he said.
Because of the long distance of the flight, two teams of pilots were aboard. The relief crew was asked to talk to Leggett, Gonzalez said.
"Mr. Leggett had threatened to kill another passenger," Gonzalez said. "The pilots were able to calm him down, and a decision was made to divert the plane."
"Mr. Leggett was very agitated. He claimed to be a terrorist," Gonzalez said. "He said, 'You don't know who I am.' He was just acting bizarre."
No one was injured, Gonzalez said. Alcohol and medication are believed to have been involved, Gonzalez said. Leggett had a bottle of alcohol on the plane that the flight crew didn't know about, he said.
The diversion caused no other problems with Northwest's flight scheduling, said airline spokeswoman Schubert.