An incident on a Southwest Airlines flight from Houston, Texas to Columbus, Ohio on Saturday, November 26, 2022, in the afternoon, forced the plane to make an emergency landing at Bill and Hilary Clinton National Airport in Little Rock, Arkansas mid-flight.
A statement from Southwest Airlines said that the flight was forced to land abruptly after the crew observed a woman passenger assaulting another person on the flight.
After the emergency landing, an FBI agent for the Little Rock airport, the Transportation Security Administration, and local police officers arrested the violent passenger. She was later identified as Elom Agbegninou, 34. Southwest’s statement said that she will face federal charges.
The disturbance reportedly began because Agbegninou tried to open an exit door at the rear of the plane during the flight, according to court documents.
Flight attendants said that the woman shoved one of them and was pulling at the exit door handle and whacking her head on the plane door before they had to restrain her. A passenger tried to help restrain her and was bitten on the thigh.
Agbegninou allegedly told the passenger, ”Jesus told her to fly to Ohio” and to open the plane door.
FBI Little Rock’s Public Affairs Officer, Conor Hagan confirmed the incident and said the federal agency was investigating it and one person was in custody.
After a short delay at the Little Rock Airport, the flight took off and landed safely at the John Glenn Columbus, Ohio International Airport, its final destination.
The suspect appeared in federal court on November 29.
Since the Covid pandemic, airlines have had several incidents of disruptive passengers. The year 2021 was the worst year. The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) received almost 6,000 reports of “unruly” passengers.
Delta Airlines attempted to arrange with other airlines to create a national “no-fly” list of all unruly passengers, in order to decrease incidents of disruptive behavior.
The FAA received over 2,000 reports of disruptive passengers in 2022 and conducted over 750 investigations and 517 enforcement action cases.
