A man who was suffering from a panic attack was restrained by fellow passengers after attempting to open the door of the plane mid-flight.
Without warning, an agitated man tried pulling on the lever on the door at the back of the plane screaming “I want to get out!” in broken English.
It was here that his fellow passengers intervened, but it wasn’t until half a dozen air stewards rushed down the aisle with one carrying handcuffs that the passengers felt safe.
Ian McNally, who first spotted what was happening, was shaken up by the incident, but praised the efforts of another passenger.
“I was mightily relieved when I saw him rushing to help,” he added.
Another witness who did not want to be named was frozen in panic, according to The Guardian.
“I thought that was it,” he said. “Everyone who intervened were heroes.”
Passenger Dean Whyte, who is a shocking 2 metres tall and a boxer, also intervened with the anxious man, telling him to “calm down”.
“It was like something out of a movie. When I got there, he was shouting ‘I want to get out’ in broken English.
“I managed to grab him and was preparing to slam him hard if necessary but myself and the steward could see he wasn’t quite right in the head, so I held him and tried to calm him down. Eventually it worked.”
Whyte later took a screenshot of the article from The Guardian and said that he was just “happy I was there to help”.
Just Happy I Was There To Helphttps://t.co/613bYU1ZRi pic.twitter.com/TlrtXY7RRm
— Dean Whyte (@DeanWhyte8) December 3, 2019
A British Airways flight attendant said that they had “never seen anything like that before”.