JetBlue pilot from Richmond Hill prompts emergency landing in Texas

The flight captain raced up the aisle screaming, pounded on the cockpit door and shouted, "First Iraq, then Afghanistan, now this," passengers said Tuesday.

More than a half-dozen passengers, many on their way from New York to Las Vegas for a security convention, surged forward and subdued the captain, he said. Airport officials identified the pilot as Clayton Frederick Osbon, of Richmond Hill.

"We all knew in the front rows if he got back in the cockpit, we were going down," said Gabriel Schonzeit, who witnessed the drama from a third-row seat aboard JetBlue Flight 191, which made an emergency landing at Rick Husband Amarillo International Airport at 10:11 a.m.

When the plane touched down, Amarillo police scrambled aboard, apprehended Osbon and transported him to Northwest Texas Hospital, officials said. JetBlue Airways officials said in a statement that the flight captain suffered a medical condition and another pilot who was onboard but not on the crew stepped in to help fly the plane. Airline officials would not elaborate. The FBI is investigating.

Several hours into the flight, passengers said, Osbon emerged from the cockpit, walked into the bathroom at the back of the plane, then sprinted up the aisle, screaming "Iraq," "al-Qaida" and "terrorism." He tried to re-enter the cockpit, but his security code appeared to have been changed, Schonzeit said.

"It seemed like he went crazy," Schonzeit said.