A heroic former high school football player restrained a Breeze Airways passenger during a racist mid-air meltdown by picking him up like a toddler and plonking him in his seat.
David Leroy Carter, 46, allegedly yelled racial slurs and swung a skateboard and belt at flight attendants and fellow passengers during Los Angeles bound Flight MX704.
Witnesses say Carter dropped ‘F-bombs and N-bombs’ as he waved his board and acted violently towards others on-board. He also allegedly threw trash on the aircraft floor.
Footage captured from inside the cabin shows how Carter, with a smile plastered on his face, ignored orders from a flight attendant desperately begging him to sit down.
‘You need to sit down,’ the flight attendant said, as the unruly passenger pushed past her down the aisle. ‘You need to sit down.’
The flight attendant, holding a restraint in her hands, turned to the other passengers and asked if there was anyone who could help her put the device on Carter.
That’s when 6’6′ Ray – who had been a tight end and defensive end for his high school football team – stood up, grabbed Carter under his armpits and tossed him in a seat.
‘Sit your a** down,’ Ray told Carter as the flight attendant cheered: ‘There we go.’ His decisive use of strength saw him hailed as the ‘linebacker in 17C’ by other passengers.
David Leroy Carter, 46, was picked up under the armpits like a toddler and plonked in a seat after he had a violent outburst during a Wednesday flight from Virginia to LA
Carter (pictured being escorted off the plane by police) started screaming and acting violently towards flight attendants and other travelers. The pilot was forced to divert to Grand Junction Regional Airport in Colorado due to the incident
The pilot was forced to divert to Grand Junction Regional Airport in Colorado due to Carter’s violent outburst. The suspect was taken into police custody upon landing.
The diversion meant the usually six-hour journey took a total 13 hours, with the plane forced to wait on the tarmac in Colorado for law enforcement officials.
In the air, Carter was restrained twice as the staff urgently arranged for the emergency landing and notified local police of the situation.
But he managed to break free – using a ‘waist belt’ to whack anyone trying to stop his reign of terror.
Other passengers reportedly had to hold him down until the plane landed.
Ray, who attended Jordan High School in LA’s Watts neighborhood, said his jumping in to help was an impulse.
‘Instinct just took over,’ he told KNBC. ‘I didn’t know it was going to get all like this. It was just instinct.’
Speaking to ABC, he added: ‘My son was on there and there were other kids on there, and so I just had to sit him down.’
Comedian PK Mackey, who was sat a row away from the unruly passenger, praised the student for his ‘amazing’ response to the horrific incident.
‘He literally picked this man up underneath his armpits and put him down like it was in a car seat,’ Mackey told the news outlet. ‘It was amazing.’
Another passenger, Jeff Hankerson, told ABC: ‘He just got up and sat him down in the seat like a little kid.’
Audio from Air Traffic Controllers obtained by 13 News Now indicates the belt carter used to attack his fellow passengers was one of the restraints he broke out of.
‘Approach said that the passenger is free and he’s using what they are trying to restrain him with as a weapon,’ they noted.
Footage captured by one of the terrified passengers on board the flight from hell shows the aggravated perpetrator being escorted down the aisle by police officers (pictured). The incident is being investigated by the FBI, which says charges will soon be filed by the US Attorney’s Office for Colorado
Breeze Airways Flight MX704 passengers are seen deplaning after the pilot made an emergency landing at Grand Junction Regional Airport in Colorado
The operator responding on the ground responded: ‘Hitting people with his own waist belt, right?’
‘Belt, yes sir,’ the flight employee responded. It is not immediately clear if this belt was one of his restraints or if it was one he was wearing.
The Daily Mail has reached out to the airline of comment and clarification.
When the plane finally landed, Grand Junction Police swarmed the plane and took Carter into custody.
Footage captured by a terrified passenger shows the aggravated perpetrator being escorted down the aisle by police officers as he was handcuffed.
The incident is being investigated by the FBI, which says charges will soon be filed by the US Attorney’s Office for Colorado. It is unclear what those charges will be.
The police department said that there were no reported injuries. But an airline spokesperson did confirm a flight attendant and a guest were evaluated for minor injuries.
‘Our focus now is on taking care of our Crew and remaining Guests who have been unfairly inconvenienced by this unfortunate event and getting them safely to their final destination as quickly as possible.’
Breeze Airways Flight MX704 (pictured) broke out in chaos in the middle of its journey from Norfolk, Virginia to Los Angeles, California on Wednesday
The chaos erupted in the middle of Flight MX704’s journey from Norfolk, Virginia to the southern California hotspot on Wednesday.
The flight took off from Norfolk just after 9am, but was forced to land in Colorado around 11.30am local time – four and a half hours after takeoff, flight tracking data revealed.
The flight from Grand Junction to Los Angeles was rescheduled for just after 6:15pm local time, FlightAware data showed. The journey to LA took about an hour and a half.
There have been 1,007 unruly passenger reports since the start of the year, according to the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA).
‘Incidents where airline passengers have disrupted flights with threatening or violent behavior are an ongoing problem and airlines have seen rapid growth in occurrences since 2021,’ the agency wrote.
In 2021, the FAA saw a record-high number of outrageous incidents and received a staggering 5,973 reports that year.