The man accused of delivering an erratic outburst aboard a flight bound for Newark Airport has lost his job after photos showed the unusual method used to restrain him.<\/p>\n
Arthur Lundeen, of Arizona, was arrested by authorities in Maryland after American Airlines Flight 618 was diverted after multiple passengers had to help duct tape the man to his seat.<\/p>\n
The 67-year-old is facing disorderly conduct and assault charges. Contact information for his attorney was not immediately known.<\/p>\n
Two men who work in Woodland Park, New Jersey, witnessed the midair outburst firsthand and jumped into action to help the flight attendants on board.<\/p>\n
Richard O’Lenick and Juan Mejia, the latter a former police officer, said Lundeen was shouting racial and homophobic slurs before he started to get physical.<\/p>\n
“The flight attendants tried to deescalate him. They were just getting spit venom from hit, derogatory remarks, racial comments,” Mejia said. “So I said to him, if he escalates from there, I’m going to have to get involved.”<\/p>\n
The pair said flight attendants first pulled out zip ties, before resorting to duct tape. Mejia said he grabbed the tape and went to work.<\/p>\n
“I didn’t cover his eyes, I didn’t cover his airways \u2014 his nose, his mouth \u2014 that was the most important thing. We’re not looking to hurt the gentleman but we’re looking that he doesn’t hurt himself any further, or us or anyone else,” the New Jersey man explained.<\/p>\n
“I’m glad that we were able to do what we did,” O’Lenick.<\/p>\n
The airline released a statement saying “the safety and security of our customers and team members is our top priority.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The man accused of delivering an erratic outburst aboard a flight bound for Newark Airport has lost his…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":340712,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[39],"tags":[3294,1066,9,24,1086,63,134,136,135],"class_list":["post-340711","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-staten-island","tag-crime-and-courts","tag-new-jersey","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-newark-airport","tag-nyc","tag-staten-island","tag-staten-island-headlines","tag-staten-island-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/340711","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=340711"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/340711\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/340712"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=340711"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=340711"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=340711"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}