Man May Have Overreacted a Tad at Seat Change Request

A flight from Denver to Houston got messy on Tuesday evening when one of the passengers tried (and seemed to almost succeed) to break one of the plane's windows midair. ABC News reports that Frontier Airlines Flight 4856 was not even a half-hour into its trip when a witness says a woman asked a man behind her if they could switch seats. Something about her request apparently set the male passenger off, as he started kicking her seat and then attacking a nearby window.

"I started having a panic attack," says Victoria Clark, who, per KHOU was sitting across from the man with her 3-year-old daughter. "[I thought] it could be a terrorist attack." She notes that "everyone in [the man's] row and in front of him kind of moved away," leaving her and her daughter too close to the chaos for comfort. Fellow passengers, including Clark's fiancé and ex-military member Tanner Phillips, helped subdue the man—who managed to bust the window's interior Plexiglas cover and crack the window itself—restraining him with zip ties and boot laces.

"This guy was just going crazy," Phillips tells ABC. "He was screaming in multiple languages, punching out the window, and [lying] back and trying to kick it out." The Seattle Times reports that, despite the window itself cracking, the plane didn't lose pressure. The pilot decided to carry on to Houston instead of making an emergency landing elsewhere, and the plane touched down at Bush Intercontinental Airport at around 11pm local time. The Houston Police Department was notified of the incident ahead of the plane's landing and said they had officers there to greet the "combative" man upon arrival. The airline, however, decided not to press charges at the scene. The FBI is investigating. (More Frontier Airlines stories.)