Naked Plane Passenger Forces Flight to Turn Back

An Alaska Airlines flight bound for Seattle was forced to turn around after a naked man barricaded himself onboard.

Alaska Airlines Flight 146, carrying 178 passengers, headed from Anchorage, Alaska to Seattle, Washington was forced to divert back to Anchorage early Wednesday morning after a man onboard the flight allegedly shed himself of his clothes and barricaded himself in the bathroom, KTVA reports.

The Boeing 737, which took off at 1:25 a.m., returned to Ted Stephens Anchorage Airport at around 3 a.m., where it was met by airport police, who escorted the man off of the plane.

“There was a subject on the aircraft that had barricaded or locked himself in the bathroom, the lavatory,” Airport Police and Fire Sgt. Darcey Perry said. “Flight attendants did find that the subject was naked.”

FBI agents responded to the airport and questioned the man as well as passengers who had been on board the diverted flight, but a spokesman for the U.S. attorney for Alaska said no charges had been filed as of Wednesday afternoon.

“While no emergency was declared, pilots made the decision to return to Anchorage,” Alaska Airlines spokesman Tim Thompson wrote. “Flight 146 arrived at Anchorage International around 2:45 a.m. and was met by law enforcement officers at the gate. The passenger was escorted off the flight by officers.”

Kate Danyluk, a passenger on the flight, spoke to the Associated Press about the experience, claiming that she suspected that something was wrong when she noticed flight attendants walking through the aisles and putting on rubber gloves.

“The police came on and took him out the back door,” she said, adding that she had heard that the man “had taken off his clothes and he just wasn’t in his right mind.”

“I’d rather go back to Anchorage than have something happen,” she said. “Safety first.”

Flight 146 eventually got off the ground a second time at 6:37 a.m., arriving in Seattle without issue.