Summary
Passengers on an American Airlines flight from Milwaukee to Dallas-Fort Worth restrained a Canadian man with duct tape after he allegedly attempted to open a cabin door mid-flight, claiming he was the “captain” and needed to exit.
The man became aggressive, injuring a flight attendant as he rushed toward the door.
Several passengers, including Doug McCright and Charlie Boris, subdued him, using duct tape to secure his hands and ankles.
Authorities detained the man upon landing, and the incident remains under investigation.
In most airplanes, it’s impossible to open the doors while the plane is in the air due to air pressure keeping them in place.
Yes it is. Unless they’re under like 5,000 feet there’s hundreds of pounds of pressure holding the door closed.
Just looked it up, it’s over 20,000 lbs of force required to open the door when pressurized.
It’s why plane doors open inwards before they open outwards. The air pressure means the door cannot possibly open inwards when at altitude.
No, but it does mean that calling it attempted murder is a bit strong. They were trying to do something that’s physically impossible for them to do. It’d be like calling it attempted murder if I went up to someone and tried to use my psychic powers to explode their heart.
It’s an attempt to harm, and you will be prosecuted for it.
Intent is the key, if the person had a gun they thought was loaded but actually wasn’t, wouldn’t it still be attempted murder if they put it to your head and pulled the trigger? Same thing with the door, they thought it would open.
Maybe try to reason about why an insane person might do that instead of assuming that everybody is evil?
Feel free to reason it out with someone on your next flight as they do everything described in the article. Have fun.
