A Southwest Airlines Boeing 737 at a gate in Austin, Texas
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An “unruly” Southwest passenger tried to open the plane door mid-flight, according to reports.
The woman said “Jesus told her to open the plane door,” according to Click2Houston.
She is now facing charges alleging assault and interfering with the flight crew.
A woman who was removed from a Southwest flight and accused of “unruly behavior” last week was trying to open the plane door mid-flight, according to court documents reported by Click 2 Houston.
According to the complaint, the woman said that “Jesus told her to open the plane door,” Click 2 Houston reported.
The flight, scheduled to depart from Houston and arrive in Columbus, Ohio, had to make an emergency landing in Little Rock, Arkansas, so the woman could be removed from the plane, Insider previously reported.
She is now facing charges alleging assault and interference with flight crew members and attendants, Click 2 Houston reported.
The 34-year-old woman got up from her seat in the middle of the flight and walked to the back of the aircraft where she “stared” at the exit door, court documents said, according to Click 2 Houston.
A flight attendant then told the woman to use the bathroom or return to her seat, Click 2 Houston reported. Another flight attendant said the woman asked to look out the window, and when they told her she could not, she pushed past the flight attendants and began pulling at the exit door handle while the plane was 37,000 feet in the air.
A passenger who overheard what was going on from their seat went to the back of the plane to help detain the woman, according to Click 2 Houston; the passenger reportedly bit the passenger on the thigh during the scuffle.
Click 2 Houston reported the woman told authorities she was on her way to Maryland to visit a friend and was traveling alone without any luggage. The complaint claims she left her home on Saturday without telling her husband.
She told authorities she “had not flown in a long time” and couldn’t remember the last time she was on a plane.
The court documents allege that the woman said she could not breathe on the plane, prompting her to leave her seat and try to open the plane door, which she said she remembered doing, Click 2 Houston reported. She said she “became very anxious and normally would not have done those things.”
Lawyers representing the accused woman and the US attorney handling the case did not immediately respond to Insider’s request for comment.