airtraffic

Author Topic: Tampa Rays baseball announcer helps subdue passenger on Albuquerque Flight  (Read 6824 times)

Offline kyle172

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ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. - Kevin Kennedy woke up when the guy next to him started talking about Satan.

The Rays color analyst had been dozing in seat 2C on a redeye flight from Los Angeles to Tampa when he woke up Thursday night to a chaotic situation.

"I think all of us were asleep and you start hearing these loud voices - some guy talking about Satan and death," he recalled today in an interview at Tropicana Field in St. Petersburg, where he was about to call the Friday night game against Toronto. "I could hear the flight attendant. She sound a little bit nervous and her voice was a little high, so it woke me up."

Kennedy, 55, was one of eight passengers and crew members who helped subdue Stanley Dwayne Sheffield, 46, of Largo, on Delta flight 2148.

Sheffield faces federal charges after the flight to Tampa was diverted to Albuquerque. Authorities said Sheffield sprayed the first-class cabin with a water bottle, tried to open a cabin door and threatened to blow up the aircraft.

"When he started threatening bomb, I knew it was for real," Kennedy said. "We were all kind of looking at him."

Kennedy said the man sitting next to him and others tried to calm Sheffield down.

"It wasn't happening. It was actually getting worse," he said. "He said "I'm going to take the plane down. You're all going to hell with me."

The man started moving toward the cabin door, which he had been threatening to open.

"I'm not a pilot so I don't know about (cabin) pressure,'' Kennedy said. "I'm not going to think about that stuff so I was thinking when he was doing that, do I stay buckled and stay in or do I get unbuckled and take him out? So I elected to get unbuckled and take him out."

But first they had to wait for one passenger.

"He said, 'Wait until I tie my shoe laces first," Kennedy said. "We laughed about that four hours later, but at the time I didn't laugh. I waited for him so he didn't trip."

Susan Elliott, a spokeswoman at Delta's headquarters in Atlanta, said the cabin door can't open during flight because of cabin pressurization. The aircraft was an Airbus A320, and held 100 passengers and seven crew members.

After Kennedy and seven others wrestled Sheffield to the ground, they tried to tie him up, but Sheffield was strong, he said.

"He broke a belt, my partner gave him a belt and tried to tie him with a belt, he broke right through that," he said.

They tried plastic ties they got from the flight crew, Sheffield broke through the first pair. They then used the seatbelts attendants use in their safety demonstrations.

In addition to pre-game interviews, Kennedy talked about the incident live on television during the game. He said it happened so fast he didn't think about the danger he was placing himself in by tackling the man, whom he said had been sitting about four feet away.

"You don't think about death and dying, you think about how to prevent this.''

Kennedy said he and the man he was sitting next to had talked about such an incident before falling asleep.

"That's what's eerie about it, because we'd talked about it," Kennedy said, adding he was going to get the man into a Rays game. He said he considers the other passengers involved "lifelong friends.''

Once the man was subdued, the plane diverted to Albuquerque, where Kennedy had once managed the city's minor league team. The flight to Tampa resumed about 4 a.m. Friday.

FBI Supervisory Special Agent Darrin Jones said authorities do not believe the incident was related to terrorism.

Sheffield was charged with interference with flight crew members and destruction of aircraft.

Sheffield made an initial appearance Friday before U.S. Magistrate Richard Puglisi, who scheduled preliminary and detention hearings for Monday. Assistant U.S. Attorney Chuck Barth said Sheffield remained jailed in Albuquerque.
According to a criminal complaint, the incident began 90 minutes after takeoff.

Passenger
Kevin Kennedy



Offline Chananya Freedman

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man, that's crazy!  but i'm glad it was posted here.  good job.

Offline joeyb747

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  • Nothing Like A 747!