Phoenix police are shown rushing to capture a man who jumped from a taxiing airplane today at Sky Harbor International Airport. Passenger Amanda Vega took the photo with her iPhone from the plane.
An airline passenger said he “had to go in a hurry” before opening the emergency door and jumping from a moving jet onto a runway today at Sky Harbor International Airport, according to an eyewitness.
The unidentified man, who was arrested by police after bolting from the plane, had been acting “weird” before and during the flight, talking to passengers about his “addiction to bread and Starbucks,” the eyewitness said.
In an e-mail to HEAT CITY, eyewitness and public relations consultant Amanda Vega said the man spoke to her before they boarded Delta Flight 4531 from Salt Lake City to Phoenix. “He seemed a bit ‘off,'” Vega wrote. The man told her a friend of his “kept accusing me of this and that” and said he had no luggage and “had to go in a hurry.”
After the plane landed at about 4:30 p.m. in Phoenix, the man just opened the emergency door, she said. “We were still moving when he jumped off and ran away and passengers were screaming ‘stop the plane,'” she wrote.
Phoenix police spokesman Sgt. Tommy Thompson gave a slightly different account to media, but Vega said the plane was in motion and not parked at its gate at Terminal 3 as reported. The Arizona Republic reported that the man was being questioned by local and federal authorities.