Unruly man on Hawaii flight caused security breach at LAX hours earlier
The radio call came in at 2:45 a.m. Friday about a man who had stepped out of an emergency fire exit leading to the Los Angeles International Airport tarmac and loudly asked, “Where can I get something to eat around here?”
Anil Uskanli, 25, of Turkey was immediately spotted by an airline worker who “escorted the guy back inside the terminal,” Rob Pedregon, a spokesman for the LAX Police Department, said Saturday. “They determined that he had been drinking but did not meet the criteria for drunk in public.”
Uskanli, a ticketed passenger on an American Airlines flight who had gone through Transportation Security Administration screening in Terminal 5, “was arrested for misdemeanor trespassing, cited, given a pending court date and released from custody,” Pedregon said.
The man’s problems apparently did not end there.
According to federal authorities, he was arrested later Friday after a disturbance on an American Airlines jet headed to Honolulu from Los Angeles.
During the flight, officials said, Uskanli was subdued by passengers and attendants who used a drink cart to block him from the front of the plane.
Uskanli was duct-taped to his seat until the plane landed in Hawaii, where federal agents boarded the plane and arrested him, passenger Lee Lorenzen said.
“The flight attendants just were really heroic,” Lorenzen said. “By the time we landed and the FBI took him into custody, he was very mellow.”
There were no reports of injuries on the flight.
Federal authorities said they were preparing a complaint against Uskanli for interference with a flight crew.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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UPDATES:
4:10 p.m.: This article has been updated with officials’ confirmation of the suspect’s identity.
11:50 a.m.: This article has been updated with details and comments from LAX.
This article was originally published at 9:10 a.m.
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