You may have seen this story on the news Friday, but a man threatened to blow up a plane flying from Los Angeles to Tampa. Former Texas Ranger and Red Sox manager and current analyst for the Tampa Bay Rays, Kevin Kennedy was on the flight. He and several passengers decided to take action and subdue him, but before a struggle.
Kennedy went on Sirius XM’s MLB Network Radio to talk about what happened. Here’s a press release from Sirius.
According to reports, early Friday morning (Apr. 23) a Los Angeles-to-Tampa flight was diverted to Albuquerque because of an unruly passenger who allegedly threatened to blow up the aircraft and attempted to open the main cabin door before he was subdued by the crew and fellow passengers.SIRIUS XM host and former Texas Rangers and Boston Red Sox manager Kevin Kennedy was on the flight and involved in the effort to restrain the passenger.Kennedy went on MLB Network Radio on SIRIUS XM with colleagues Jim Bowden and Casey Stern to discuss the incident.
Kevin Kennedy: “The guy was serious. He said, ‘I’m gonna blow this plane up. I’m serious about it. I’m gonna take you all down with me.’ So we thought, number one, he had a bomb on him, whether it be a homemade or whatever. So we had to make a quick decision and as soon as he started to go for the door – he said, ‘I’m going to open this door and suck you all out’ – we charged. And we took him down and took him out and hog tied him and then put him in the front row and two guys had their feet on him while he was hog tied. I got in the front row as well and was right there with him. We eventually diverted to Albuquerque, 25 minutes away. The FBI, the police got him. The FBI came on and we had a 4-hour layover and the 8 of us that were involved in taking this guy down were asked to do an interrogation, which we did willfully of course. We’ll see what happens from there but it was surreal, Casey and Jim. I don’t wish that on anybody but I think you guys or any of us out there in the same situation probably would have done the same thing that the 8 guys involved in taking this guy out did.”Jim Bowden: “Was there much of a fight from him? Can you describe what he looked like? How long of a takedown was it?”Kennedy: “He was a pretty big guy. We have his name, of course. It’s out there on the internet now. He’s 46 years old. I would say he was about 6-foot-plus, a good size, well over 200 pounds. And, I mean, he was strong. I tell you there were a couple of younger guys, younger than I, that were on top of him as well and they were having a tough time keeping him down. I had his left arm. Let me tell you, Jim, how strong he was. He broke the first set of handcuffs behind his back that we got locked on him, those plastic tie ones that the airlines have. Fortunately they had a another set and we then got our belts off, we used the seatbelts, and we got his hands finally tied behind his back. And then we got his legs tied hog-style. That was the only way to keep him down. But he was strong. He was a tough fight. You’re talking several guys on him to put him down. He just had that adrenaline from whatever the reason was. I’m not going to speculate on that. But it was not an easy takedown, let’s put it that way.”Kevin Kennedy hosts “Power Alley,” weekdays (10am-2pm ET) on MLB Network Radio, available to listeners nationwide on XM channel 175 and SIRIUS channel 210 with the “Best of XM” programming package.
Certainly a harrowing experience, but one that came out on the right side because of the actions taken by Kennedy and the other passengers.
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