Guy Who Spooked Newark Flight Claimed Snowden Tie

The man who caused a scare on a Hong Kong-Newark flight yesterday by announcing that everyone on board had been poisoned claimed to have information on NSA leaker Edward Snowden, passengers tell the AP. The passenger, an American identified as Daniel Morgan Perry, was "saying he had information relating to Ed Snowden and he was being taken back to some safe house somewhere, never to be seen again," says one witness, describing him as "paranoid." Passengers restrained Perry with plastic handcuffs for the final six hours of the flight.

Witnesses say Perry ranted about the CIA, claimed to be an employee of the US Embassy in Abu Dhabi, and demanded the flight be diverted to Canada. "He was convinced he was going to die before this flight landed," says a passenger who helped calm Perry down by talking about his children. An official with the New York Joint Terrorism Task Force says Perry was taken to the hospital for observation after the flight landed, and he is "apparently an unstable person who is controlled by his medication and maybe he didn't take it," ABC reports. (More Edward Snowden stories.)