A Utah man was arrested after he allegedly held a razor blade to the throat of a female passenger sitting next to him during a JetBlue Salt Lake City-bound flight from New York.
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Merrill Darrell Fackrell,41, was traveling back home on November 21 when he allegedly placed the weapon against the woman’s neck. According to the Daily Mail, he was sitting in a window seat in a row with a married couple and consumed multiple alcoholic drinks during the flight. The victim said she started watching a movie using headphones when she noticed Frackrell was talking to himself but didn’t pay him any mind.
Moments later, he placed his hand on the screen and told the victim to pause the movie. After she took off her headphones, the woman noticed Frackrell placed the razor blade inches away from her neck. He also told the victim’s husband to ‘get the f*** out of there.’
Witness: Man takes woman hostage on @jetblue flight to @slcairport with razor to throat, demands plane land saying “This ain’t no 9/11 sh**.” Good Samaritan steps in, gets weapon away, calms man down, stays next to him until plane lands. “Peace out” man says as he’s arrested. #ut pic.twitter.com/9Cb35jMlKp
— Lauren Steinbrecher (@LaurenSnews) November 24, 2022
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Another male passenger named Rob witnessed the incident and confronted Fackrell and was able to remove the object while the victim’s husband notified a flight attendant. Investigators said it is unclear how Fackrell was able to get the razor blade on the flight. Abraham Neiderhauser, another passenger, said he heard Fackrell yelling two rows in front of him and grabbed the victim during the incident.
‘He says, ‘Don’t worry, she’s going to be fine. She’s going to be fine,’ and it was kind of a weird thing and kind of ominous, too, the way he was grabbing her. And it’s like, what is that? Is that like a weapon or something?’
Fackrell apparently wanted the plane to land as well but it was unclear why he said it.
He’s like, ‘This ain’t no 9/11 s**t.’ He’s like, ‘just land the plane, and everyone will be fine.’ We didn’t understand why he wanted the plane landed,’
The Transportation Security Administration said in a statement that they were concerned about ‘unruly’ passengers who commit disruptive behavior during flights.
‘We take our responsibility to secure the skies for the traveling public very seriously and are introducing new x-ray technology at more airports to improve our capability to better detect items such as the one used in this incident. We commend the actions of the flight attendants and other passengers on this flight.’