Navajo Express Execs Foil Bomb Threat as Passenger Charges Cockpit on Flight

This story appears in the March 30 print edition of Transport Topics.

Navajo Express executives Don Digby Jr. and Scott Maldonado were feeling good about closing a business deal earlier in the day and planning on a relaxing evening flight from Washington Dulles International Airport to Denver.

It wasn’t to be.

While United Airlines flight 1074 was still in its climb over the Washington, D.C., suburbs, Maldonado, sitting in window seat 3E, noticed a man moving quickly in the darkness toward the pilot’s cabin while flailing his arms and yelling.

“I couldn’t hear what he was saying. I had my headset on, but I knew something was wrong,” Maldonado, director of sales for Navajo, recalled in an interview with Transport Topics a few days after the March 16 flight.

“Then Don stood up, and I noticed that his face didn’t look right. So I got up and approached the man, who was facing the pilot’s door and having some words with a flight attendant.”

Digby, president of the Denver-based dry van motor carrier, said he saw a look of terror on the flight attendant’s face.

The flight attendant asked the man to move back, but he was screaming, “There’s a bomb on the plane! The plane’s going down,” Digby said.

Maldonado, who served eight years in the U.S. Army, wrestled the man to the floor, holding down his upper body, while Digby contained the man’s legs. They searched his body but found no explosives.

The unruly passenger was strong and refused to settle down, so it took all the strength the two executives had to keep him on the floor for about 20 minutes while the plane turned back, Digby said.

After the plane landed at Washington Dulles, the man was handcuffed and quickly escorted off the plane by police.

“Unfortunately, we never really even got to see the guy,” Digby said. “It was pitch-dark, and the only light on the plane was where the flight attendants were sitting.”

It turned out the man was not a terrorist but apparently still a potential threat to passengers.

Although Digby and Maldonado since have been interviewed by the news media, and a short video of the incident has been posted on YouTube.com, the two frequent fliers said they haven’t heard from United Airlines or the authorities.

“We have not received any communication regarding this event,” Digby said.

In a March 17 statement, United acknowledged that the flight returned to Dulles after a passenger “failed to comply” with crew instructions. “Local law enforcement officials met the aircraft at the gate and detained the passenger,” the statement said.

United spokesman Luke Punzenberger declined to provide further details.

Maldonado said that just after he took the man down, he was concerned that the unruly passenger was a terrorist when he heard him say, “Jihad.”

“I really accepted the fact that this was going to be our last flight,” Maldonado said. “But the thought came and went like that.”

The two don’t consider themselves heroes.

“Scott and I were blessed to be on that flight, that we had the opportunity to stop this guy and the fact that we were the only ones that stood up when this individual was all the way to row 1,” Digby said.

Digby said he and Maldonado may have been subconsciously influenced by the events of 9/11 in quickly assessing what could have been a very dangerous event.

“You hear it nonstop: to be alert, to be vigilant, know your surroundings,” Digby said. “Far too often, people disregard those simple rules.”

After the flight, the pilot shook hands with Digby and Maldonado. He told them that a week earlier, he participated in a simulated terrorist exercise and that the practice run was a carbon copy of what actually happened that day.

“The whole event has been positive,” Digby said. “I think we’ve all wondered what we would do if we saw some guy running down the aisle of an airplane. Scott and I know now what we would do.”