A woman stripped to her underwear and twice tried to storm a plane cockpit on a flight from a holiday hotspot back to the UK. But a dad-of-three stepped in to restrain the passenger, who reportedly shouted "Allahu Akbar" as she ran through the plane's cabin.
Phillip O'Brien, 35, got hold of the woman and helped crew members secure her in a chair on the Jet2 flight from Cyprus to Manchester. She has reportedly claimed there were explosives on board.
She even asked the children she was with if they were "ready to die", reports the Mirror. It is claimed the woman, in her 30s, said her parents were members of terror group Isis before the pilot diverted to Paris and she was led away.
Drainage firm boss Mr O'Brien, who worked in security as a teenager, was with six family members including his wife and three children aged eight to 14.
He said: "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'. As you can imagine everyone was sh**ing themselves.
"I spoke to staff and said, 'Why have you not put her to the floor?'. They said, 'We're not able to'. I said, 'Well I am'.
"So when the woman went to the cockpit again I took control, took her to the ground and at that point the pilot did an emergency landing to Paris."
Mr O'Brien said he asked the woman why she was saying such things and she replied: "If I didn't there's going to be an explosion and everybody is going to die."
Jet2 said the Larnaca-Manchester flight was diverted to Paris in the early hours of Tuesday so a "disruptive passenger could be offloaded".
