Passenger restrained on JWA-bound flight By Curt Seeden | Orange County Register
September 27, 2012 at 10:21 am
Several passengers on a United Airlines flight from Chicago to John Wayne Airport on Tuesday night tackled and used their belts to restrain a man who was harassing and scaring passengers, according to an Orange County man who was on the flight.
David Truong, owner of Mimi’s Jewelry in Fountain Valley, said the erratic passenger on United Flight 473 put him on immediate alert.
“You see stuff like this on TV and the news, but you never think it’s going to happen to you,” Truong said Wednesday.
FBI spokeswoman Laura Eimiller identified the man as Arash Durrani, 26, who may have residences in Virginia and California. Eimiller said Durrani will be charged with interference with a flight crew, a federal offense.
Durrani, also known as “Ash,” was taken into custody when the plane landed, officials said. According to imdb.com, Durrani is an actor, model and founder of GROW Clothing, a company geared toward promoting awareness of social movements and charities.
The incident on the plane began about 45 minutes into the flight from O’Hare Airport to John Wayne, Truong said.
Truong said a man began pacing around the plane and bothering passengers.
“He was inappropriately touching women and aggressively harassing people,” Truong said.
“He was walking in and out of the restroom, and at one point I was scared that he may have done something or gotten something in the restroom, so I asked him to sit.”
Passenger Nona Pitts said the man was drinking heavily and would not stop badgering her.
“He grabbed my hair and lifted my head up and said, ‘I want to kiss you,'” Pitts, owner of Salon 5150 in Brea, said in an interview Wednesday.
As the man became more belligerent, several male passengers tried to intervene, Pitts said.
“Everyone was getting annoyed with him,” she said. “He was completely wasted. He had three straight Jack Daniel’s and a beer, and he was getting another drink.”
The flight attendants told the man to stay in his seat, Pitts said. They also threatened to call a marshal if he didn’t calm down, she said.
Truong said the pilots remained in the cabin during the episode.
When the man started scaring children on the plane, Truong said he made the decision to physically restrain him. He and other male passengers used their belts to confine him.
“He was unbelievably strong,” Truong said. “I was on his chest, and three other guys were holding his arms and legs.”
He and other passengers held the man down for nearly three hours during the four-hour, 15-minute flight.
Truong said a doctor on the flight tried to calm the man by injecting him with Valium.
“He would go in and out of consciousness, but every time he came around he would try to fight again,” Truong said.
Sheila Di Marco, Durrani’s agent, said Wednesday she had not heard anything about the incident.
Truong said he and the others who restrained the man were questioned at the gate at JWA for about an hour.
“
I just know the next time I fly, I’m bringing duct tape,” he said.
