A hero-father-of-three restrained a woman who stripped to her underwear and ran through a Manchester-bound plane naked before trying to storm the cockpit twice while shouting ‘Allahu Akbar’.
Phillip O’Brien, 35, was a passenger on the Jet2 flight from Lanarca, Cyprus to Manchester on Tuesday 9 August when a woman, in her 30s, caused the panicked scene shortly after take-off.
The woman seemed to suggest she had explosives on board with her, and also asked the children she was with if they were ‘ready to die’.
She also told the terrified passengers and staff that her parents were members of terror group ISIS.
Mr O’Brien, a drainage firm boss, was on board six of his family members, including his wife and three children aged eight to 14.
He said everyone was ‘sh*****g themselves’, but while watching the scene unfold, he asked staff why no one was putting her to the floor before putting himself forward to help.
The 35-year-old, who worked in security as a teenager, told The Mirror: ‘Everything was normal and then shortly after take-off a woman walked up the aisle naked and banged on the cockpit door shouting “Allahu Akbar”.
Mr O ‘Brien said he asked the woman why she was saying such things and he claimed she replied: ‘If I didn’t there’s going to be an explosion and everybody is going to die.’
The publication reports that the flight was diverted to Paris Charles De Gaulle Airport early Tuesday morning so that a ‘disruptive passenger’ could be ‘offloaded’.
The woman was arrested and her motives remain unknown.