KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Mouaz Moustafa was flying from Los Angeles, California, to Washington D.C on a work trip, but after just two hours he said it all went wrong.
Moustafa was a passenger on American flight 1775, which made an emergency diversion to Kansas City International Airport due to an unruly passenger on Sunday.
He shared his experience with KSHB 41 News the day after.
“I believe it’s someone who had psychological issues or bad intent,” Moustafa said. “I remember thinking like, I wish there weren’t so many people on the plane because this plane is going to go down and we are all going to die together.”
Moustafa recalled hearing flight attendants screaming while on the flight.
“He’s screaming ‘Turn on the lights, turn on the light right now.' At that point everyone in the plane is worried," he said.
According to Moustafa, he could feel the plane dropping in altitude rapidly.
“We opened the window and the ground is getting closer, and we are descending rapidly, we were turning almost like a corkscrew descending down,” he said.
Moments later, Moustafa heard an announcement from flight attendants.
“Put your seat belts and tray tables up," Moustafa recalled. "And she’s almost crying, [it's] not a good thing, not a calm thing.”
Once safely on the ground in an emergency Kansas City landing, Moustafa figured out what happened.
“There was a large man in size who was trying to get into the cockpit door, trying to open the emergency latch, the side door,” he said. “The flight attendant utilized that coffee pot to bash him on the back of the head [and] strike him multiple times trying to knock him out.”
On Monday, Juan Remberto Rivas, of California, was charged with one count of assaulting and intimidating a flight attendant in the incident.
“There was blood obviously, people were pinning him down as we’re quickly landing in Kansas City," Moustafa said. "As soon as we landed police came on and the FBI who questioned the people came on the plane."
