On Sunday night, a Southwest flight to San Francisco was forced to turn around and return to Los Angeles because of what was described as a “rapidly escalating situation” between two passengers. The altercation began after a female passenger reclined her seat and a male passenger allegedly began choking her. And one of the other passengers on the flight – one who was ready to jump out of his own seat and take action – was a 1990s sitcom star.
Mark Curry, who played the patterned vest-loving title character in Hangin’ With Mr. Cooper, said that he had been napping during the flight until all of the activity across the aisle woke him up. Curry, who now hosts a morning radio show in San Francisco, told NBC Bay Area:
“I thought it was a terrorist so I jumped up. I didn’t know what to do. A guy got into it with a lady and choked her or something,” Curry said from his San Francisco radio station on Monday. “The lady was frantic. They wanted me to put restraints on the guy. They asked me if I would help. I said, ‘At 30,000 feet, yes! I’ll beat anybody down.’ It was an incredible situation.”
Curry told the news station that the flight crew immediately went into “tactical mode” and placed a trash can in front of the door, although he did not specify which door was barricaded. “It was serious,” Curry said. “It was a serious situation.” He said that when the flight returned to LAX, it was met by “twenty” police officers.
The alleged choker was asked to leave the flight and was taken into custody. Although the FBI is investigating the incident, no arrests have been made. A Southwest spokesperson said that the other 136 passengers were placed on another flight, which landed in San Francisco at 1:48 a.m. on Monday.
