{"id":339681,"date":"2026-09-07T03:18:27","date_gmt":"2026-09-07T03:18:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/339681\/"},"modified":"2026-09-07T03:18:27","modified_gmt":"2026-09-07T03:18:27","slug":"american-airlines-passenger-who-had-to-be-duct-taped-to-seat-after-n-word-meltdown-idd-as-arizona-realtor","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/339681\/","title":{"rendered":"American Airlines passenger who had to be duct-taped to seat after n-word meltdown ID’d as Arizona realtor"},"content":{"rendered":"

The slur-spewing plane passenger who was duct-taped and zip-tied<\/a> to his seat after an alleged mid-flight meltdown has been identified as an Arizona realtor.<\/p>\n

Layne Arthur Lundeen, 67, of Tucson, forced American Airlines flight 618 from Dallas to Newark to land prematurely in Baltimore after his obscene outburst Thursday night \u2014 during which the bigot hurled the N-word at a flight attendant<\/a> and spouted anti-gay insults, according to police.<\/p>\n

Lundeen\u2019s LinkedIn said he was a vice president at Long Realty in Tucson, however, his profile had been scrubbed from the site.<\/p>\n

A \u201cdisruptive customer\u201d is duct-taped to a seat aboard an American Airlines flight on Sept. 3. The flight from Dallas to Newark was diverted to Baltimore. The passenger was later identified as Layne Arthur Lundeen. Richard O’Lenick via Storyful<\/p>\n

Layne Arthur Lundeen, was identified as the American Airlines passenger who was duct-taped and zip-tied after hurling racist and homophobic slurs during a mid-air meltdown. LinkedIn<\/p>\n

Traveler Juan Mejia, a former law enforcement officer who was onboard, told ABC News<\/a> he and friend Richard Olenick jumped into action when they heard Lundeen two rows behind them becoming \u201cbelligerent\u201d at the end of the flight.<\/p>\n

\u201c[The] gentleman sitting two rows behind us started becoming belligerent, making derogatory remarks to the staff of American Airlines and other passengers, racial slurs, vulgar language, very offensive to the women\u201d sitting in the row behind Lundeen, Mejia said.<\/p>\n

Olenick said Mejia \u201cgot up right away and jumped in the seat right next to the passenger and began working on restraining him in order to keep the situation contained.\u201d<\/p>\n

Wild footage from the flight shows Lundeen looking duct-taped to the chair like a Scooby Doo villain with his hands, head and torso bound.<\/p>\n

American Airlines told The Post in a statement that the flight was diverted to Baltimore \u201cdue to a disruptive customer.\u201d When the plane touched down in Baltimore, \u201claw enforcement met the aircraft and assisted with deplaning the customer before the flight continued to its destination.\u201d<\/p>\n

An American Eagle airplane is seen on June 25, 2026, in the Bronx. Christopher Sadowski for NY Post<\/p>\n

The FBI confirmed Lundeen was arrested by Maryland Transportation Police.<\/p>\n

He was charged at state level with second-degree assault<\/a> and disorderly conduct, court records show.
\u201cThe FBI is currently conducting interviews to gather the facts and will consult with the U.S. Attorney\u2019s Office for the District of Maryland to determine if federal charges will be filed,\u201d the bureau said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The slur-spewing plane passenger who was duct-taped and zip-tied to his seat after an alleged mid-flight meltdown has…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":339682,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[30799,7960,10126,1458,9,11,10,1086,30800,58],"class_list":["post-339681","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york","tag-airplane-meltdowns","tag-airplanes","tag-american-airlines","tag-arizona","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-headlines","tag-new-york-news","tag-newark-airport","tag-unruly-passengers","tag-us-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/339681","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=339681"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/339681\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/339682"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=339681"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=339681"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=339681"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}