Crew members and passengers aboard a Delta Air Lines flight from Seattle headed for China Thursday evening weaponized wine bottles and anything else they could think of to subdue a young passenger who was hell bent on opening a galley exit door. According to an FBI affidavit, Joseph Hudek IV, 23, was finally subdued after a wild melee involving several crew members and passengers. At one point, a flight attendant smashed two full wine bottles over Hudek’s head but he shook that off as the Boeing 767 crew made a U-turn over Vancouver Island and headed back to Sea-Tac. “Hudek did not seemimpacted by the breaking of a full liter red wine bottle over his head,” the FBI agent wrote, “and instead shouted ‘Do you know who I am?’ or something to that extent.”
In between fending off the counterattacks of flight attendants, pilots and fellow passengers, Hudek managed to get the handle of the door halfway up but it would have been held in place by the pressurization of the cabin. Had the aircraft been at low altitude, he could have potentially opened the door although it’s not clear to what end. Severely outnumbered, he was finally zip-tied into submission on the galley floor but passengers had to keep holding him down until he was arrested by Seattle police an hour later. Hudek was flying on a company-issued flight pass used by relatives of airline employees. He was reportedly sober but did spend a couple of minutes in the bathroom before going on his rampage. He has been charged with interfering with a flight crew.
