Arthur Lundeen charged with assault after American flight diverts to Baltimore

Arthur Lundeen, a 67-year-old man from Arizona, was arrested and charged with second-degree assault and disorderly conduct after fellow passengers restrained him with duct tape and zip ties aboard an American Airlines flight that diverted to Baltimore on September 3, according to the FBI and court records.

American Airlines Flight 618 was traveling from Dallas Fort Worth International Airport to Newark Liberty International Airport on Thursday night when the crew reported a passenger disturbance, the Federal Aviation Administration said. The plane landed safely at Baltimore/Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport around 10:15 p.m., about 15 minutes after it was diverted, and later continued to Newark once Lundeen was removed.

Witnesses said the disturbance broke out roughly two hours into the flight. Lundeen, seated in the first-class cabin, put his hands around the neck of the passenger beside him and began shouting racial and homophobic slurs, including one aimed at a Black flight attendant who had walked over to try to calm him, passengers told CBS News New York.

How the confrontation unfolded

Juan Mejia, a retired law enforcement officer, and Richard Olenick were seated two rows in front of Lundeen when the cabin turned chaotic. Mejia told CBS News New York that he turned around to see Lundeen with his hands around the neck of the man in the aisle seat beside him, appearing to assault him. Olenick said Lundeen called one of the flight attendants a racial slur.

The confrontation turned physical, witnesses said. Lundeen struck the passenger seated next to him and hit that man's laptop, then pushed a woman who tried to intervene. That drew Mejia, Olenick and a third man in. A flight attendant handed the three men duct tape and zip ties, which they used to secure Lundeen to his seat around his torso, arms, hands and head.

Lundeen fought back, according to Mejia and Olenick. He bit Mejia's hand hard enough to leave teeth marks without breaking the skin, and the men who restrained him were left covered in his blood from cuts they said he had inflicted on himself. Mejia said the man was bleeding quite a bit during the struggle.

The restraints reduced Lundeen's movement but did not stop him from resisting, the two men said. They held him down for about 15 minutes until the plane landed, when local police and the FBI took over. At Baltimore, while officers were cutting the tape off and handcuffing him, he hit one of them in the chest, according to charging documents. He has not been charged over that. Photographs shared from the cabin showed him wrapped in tape and still secured to his seat.

Arrest and charges in Maryland

Maryland Transportation Authority Police arrested and booked Lundeen on state charges after the aircraft landed, the FBI's Baltimore Field Office said. Identified in court records as 67-year-old Arthur Layne Lundeen of Tucson, Arizona, he was charged with second-degree assault and disorderly conduct, both classified as misdemeanors, and was released on his own recognizance on September 4.

Lundeen is scheduled to appear in the District Court for Anne Arundel County in Glen Burnie on October 19, according to court records. He waived his right to an attorney at his initial court appearance. The charges are allegations and do not establish guilt, and the more specific claims about what he said in the air remain accounts attributed to witnesses rather than findings by a court.

The FBI is separately examining what happened in the air. The bureau's Baltimore Field Office said it responded to the airport after the diversion, is conducting interviews to determine what took place aboard the aircraft, and will consult with the U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of Maryland on whether federal charges should also be filed. The Federal Aviation Administration is also investigating.

American Airlines said the flight diverted to Baltimore because of a disruptive customer and that law enforcement met the aircraft after it landed, assisting with removing him before the plane continued to Newark. The carrier said the safety and security of its customers and team members is its top priority and that it does not tolerate violence.

Why duct tape divides airlines

American Airlines is one of the few U.S. carriers that explicitly permits duct tape to strap a passenger to a seat, according to aviation site Paddle Your Own Kanoo. It is carried on board for that purpose, along with a safety tape cutter kept on hand in case a restrained passenger needs to be freed quickly. American also carries proper restraint cuffs.

• American Airlines: permits duct tape and carries restraint cuffs and a safety tape cutter
• United and Southwest: told flight attendants not to use duct tape
• British Airways and Virgin Atlantic: carry purpose-built restraint systems
• Korean Air: arms crew with Tasers, expanded after a 2016 incident

The objection to duct tape has nothing to do with how it looks, the site said. The real concern is an unexpected emergency evacuation. Someone bound in tape has effectively no way of freeing themselves in time, and that single fact is the main argument against it. United sent a reminder to its crews in 2021 after a cluster of duct-tape restraint incidents across the industry in a short span.

One of those 2021 cases involved an 11-year-old boy on an American flight to Los Angeles who was restrained with flex cuffs. That year, Frontier crew who used duct tape on a passenger accused of sexually assaulting a flight attendant were suspended for not following proper procedure, before the airline backed down under pressure from the flight attendants' union. United was reportedly concerned crews might start carrying their own tape.

No industry standard for restraints

There is no industry-wide standard for restraint equipment; each airline decides what its crews carry. At most U.S. carriers, that means flexicuffs and seatbelt extenders, and even then flexicuffs generally are not meant to secure someone to a seat, which leaves the extender to do a job it was never designed for. Some airlines have gone further.

Unruly incidents keep climbing in 2026

Airlines have reported more than 1,160 unruly passenger incidents to the FAA so far in 2026, the agency's figures show. That compares with about 1,600 incidents for all of 2025. Travel experts say such cases are becoming increasingly common, and that the actions taken by the crew and passengers on Flight 618 were legal and within protocol.

The FAA can pursue civil penalties against passengers accused of assaulting, threatening, intimidating or interfering with airline crew members. Those fines can reach up to $43,658 per violation, and passengers can also face separate criminal charges.

Mejia and Olenick said they did not notice anything unusual about Lundeen before the outburst and do not know what set him off, though both believe alcohol may have played a role. Mejia recalled one of the flight attendants saying that the man had been served only one drink during the trip.

On board, praise for the crew

Both men praised the flight attendants for staying calm through the insults and the chaos. Unnamed eyewitnesses told TMZ that Lundeen appeared drunk and started by shouting about Jesus and going to hell at the man beside him before a Black flight attendant approached to calm him and was answered with a racial slur. The passengers who gave their names said they noticed nothing unusual about him beforehand.

Mejia said everyone in first class was victimized by the hatred, discrimination and hostility coming from Lundeen. A woman who tried to step in was pushed, which drew three male passengers to her aid, according to witness accounts reported by TMZ. The three then held the man down as he tried to fight his way out of the restraints.

The scene, captured in photos and video shared from the cabin, showed Lundeen heavily wrapped in tape and secured to his seat as the crew and passengers kept him pinned in place. Some travelers at the airport said that while unruly passengers are not new, the level of physical restraint used on Flight 618 was highly unusual for a commercial flight.

Just like a light switch, all of a sudden, it went from quiet to yelling and chaos.

Travel experts told CBS News the response followed common protocol. When a passenger becomes that unruly, crews break out the duct tape and zip ties to keep the person restrained until the plane can divert, CBS News travel expert Peter Greenberg said. CBS News senior transportation correspondent Kris Van Cleave said that is what tends to happen when someone is so disruptive they cannot be kept in a seat and present a threat aboard an aircraft.

The airline thanked its crew for their professionalism and its passengers for their understanding. The FBI has not said whether federal charges will be brought, leaving the next stage of the case to the ongoing review by investigators and prosecutors. Lundeen's state charges remain pending ahead of his October court date in Glen Burnie, where he is due to answer the assault and disorderly conduct counts.