THIS is the terrifying moment an unruly passenger was restrained by other flyers after he tried to open a plane door mid-flight.
The shocking footage shows a man being restrained by other passengers after he attempted to open the plane door 30 minutes before landing.
Other footage shows military officers boarding the aircraft and leading the man away in handcuffs with his face bloodied.
The Copa Airlines flight CM204 was heading from Brasilia, Brazil to Panama City, Panama at around 8am on Tuesday, November 5 when the incident occurred.
Passengers Marcelo Ribeiro and Everaldo Torres restrained the man after he rushed to the back of the plane with a plastic knife from his food tray.
The unruly passenger tried to take a flight attendant hostage with the aim of opening the plane door, according to Brazilian media.
Ribeiro and Elvarado, helped by other men and women on the flight, had to fight the man to stop him from opening the door.
Photojournalist Cristiano Carvalho, 51, was on the plane and recorded the moment the passenger was restrained.
He said: “He went past the back emergency door after the warning. Then he started moving forward and trying to open it.
“Then a flight attendant started screaming, and another tried to hold him back, but couldn’t because he was too strong.”
He added that all the passengers looked back, trying to understand the situation, and that they went after the man, who was resisting.
He said: “They beat him a lot until he almost lost consciousness.”
Copa Airlines said in a statement: “On Copa Airlines flight CM204 from Brasília to Panama today, 5th November 2024, there was a situation during the landing phase in which an unruly passenger tried to open one of the aircraft doors.
“The crew acted quickly and, with the assistance of some passengers, applied the necessary safety protocols to control the situation until landing in Panama.”
The airline added that when the plane arrived, “the national security team entered the aircraft and removed the passenger, taking him to the judicial authorities”.
The airline said: “Thanks to the professionalism of the crew, the safety of the flight and passengers was protected.”
It comes just months after a Ryanair flight to Ibiza had to be diverted after violence broke out when a drunken Brit downed neat vodka then assaulted cabin crew and other passengers.
The plane carrying holidaymakers from Manchester landed in Toulouse, where police hauled the sozzled traveller and his ex-girlfriend off the plane.
Video of the attack showed the boozed-up travellers shouting and swearing at French cops, before assaulting a fellow holidaymaker as he was being escorted off the flight.
The altercation lasted for about 40 minutes until Flight FR2626, which left Manchester airport at 5.20pm on Sunday, landed and 12 French police officers took him away in custody.
In footage, the visibly intoxicated man who appears to be in his late 20s is led off as passengers cheer.
The Ryanair flight spent just over an hour and a half on the tarmac at Toulouse-Blagnac Airport before continuing its journey to Ibiza, landing at 1.30am Monday.
