Airline Passengers Thwart Attempt to Enter Cockpit

Fellow passengers subdued an apparently deranged man who tried to break into the cockpit of a jetliner en route from Los Angeles to Chicago on Monday, officials said. F-16 fighter jets scrambled to escort the airliner to the ground.

The Federal Aviation Administration said the man, identified by the FBI as Edward Coburn, a 31-year-old resident of Fresno, apparently was not trying to hijack American Airlines Flight 1238 and is not a terrorist.

Although the plane wobbled momentarily as passengers grappled with the man, no one was injured and the aircraft was not damaged.

Coburn is expected to be charged today with obstructing a flight crew.

Some of the passengers were clearly shaken.

“For a split second, I thought we’d bought the farm,” one of them told a television reporter in Chicago. “If it wasn’t for the passengers, we’d be dead.”

American Airlines said the aircraft took off from Los Angeles International Airport with 153 passengers and a crew of nine shortly before 10 a.m. Monday. The incident occurred about three hours later.

An airline spokesman said the father of the suspect was among the half a dozen passengers who tackled him. The father said later that his son has a history of mental illness.

“He was screaming: ‘Look out the window! Save the Sears Tower! Save yourselves!’ ” a passenger told radio station WBBM in Chicago.

After reassuring the passengers, he pilot contacted air traffic controllers and declared an emergency. Two fighter jets quickly intercepted the jetliner and escorted it to O’Hare International Airport. Sonic booms generated by the fighters rattled nerves in the city.

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Malnic reported from Los Angeles and Slater from Chicago.