Incoherent Man Forces Jet on N.Y. Route Back to LAX

A Pan American World Airways 747 jet bound for New York with 269 passengers abruptly turned around in mid-flight and returned to Los Angeles on Saturday after a passenger began threatening and ranting incoherently, witnesses and authorities said.

The disoriented man was arrested by police after the jumbo jet landed at Los Angeles International Airport shortly after noon. A police bomb squad removed the man’s luggage but found no explosives, officials said.

No charges were filed against the passenger, whose name was not released. Los Angeles police questioned him and determined that he had committed no crime.

He was taken to Harbor-UCLA Medical Center in Torrance for psychiatric evaluation, said Sgt. John Hone of the Los Angeles police’s airport station.

The plane did not resume its flight to New York until 5 p.m.

The flight, Pan Am 90-A, took off for Kennedy Airport at 10:15 a.m. Slightly more than an hour later, the plane’s captain radioed air traffic controllers in Los Angeles, asking for permission to return.

“The captain elected to return because a passenger was interfering with the flight crew,” said Federal Aviation Administration duty officer Jerry Acosta.

Several passengers sitting in the rear described the man as thin and well dressed, with black hair slicked back. The witnesses said he behaved strangely and babbled incessantly through the flight.

“I was talking to the guy, and he was acting extremely eccentric,” said Bob Martino, 26, of the Bronx, who sat two seats away from him. “He was a real weirdo. I got really nervous and asked to see the captain.”

David Love, a Boston man sitting a row in front said he heard the man ask: “What do you do when your number’s up?”

A woman sitting between Martino and the man said she became so alarmed that she moved to another seat. She said the man frightened her by repeatedly--without prompting--assuring her that the flight would be a safe one.

After the woman moved, Martino prepared to do the same. The man then became briefly and chillingly coherent, telling Martino: “Don’t try to leave or I’ll throw you out of the plane.”

Several flight attendants repeatedly went back to talk to the man, witnesses said. One attendant brought a first-aid kit and an oxygen mask. “People were constantly in and out of there. I was petrified,” Los Angeles physician Joe Gutman said.

The plane’s captain also talked briefly to the man. Witnesses said that just before the plane landed, the unidentified captain told passengers that a faulty gauge was forcing the return to Los Angeles.

A bomb squad member in a flame-retardant suit removed the man’s luggage.