Passengers restrain man with their shoelaces after he smashed airplane window mid-flight (video)

A man on a Frontier Airlines had to be restrained by other passengers after a violent outburst that resulted in a broken plane window. 

The incident took place about 20 minutes into Frontier Flight 4856, which departed from Denver International Airport and was headed toward George Bush Intercontinental Airport in Houston on Tuesday, Feb. 4. 

Fellow passenger Victoria Clark told Storyful that the man quickly became upset when the woman in front of him asked to switch seats. He started to yell and kick her seat before attacking the window. 

“Then he immediately stood up and started punching the window and kicking at it. When people tried to stop him, he started waving his bloody knuckles around,” Clark said, according to Storyful. 

“Then he proceeded to punch the window until one of the men grabbed his arm and twisted it behind him. He was able to shatter the first layer of the window before being stopped.” 

In a video filmed by Clark, several passengers are restraining the man in the aisle with zip ties and a shoelace. 

“He was very physical,” Tanner Phillips, one of those who stepped in, told ABC13 Houston. “I picked him up and put him on the ground. It took a couple of guys to get his arms behind him and secured.” 

The broken Plexiglass didn’t compromise the safety of the aircraft, and it landed in Houston on time at around 11:10 p.m., according to FlightAware.  

Law enforcement responded to a call for a “combative” passenger and met the aircraft upon arrival, a spokesperson for the Houston Police Department (HPD) told USA TODAY. 

Officers spoke to the passenger and Frontier Airlines declined to press charges. 

HPD said the FBI is continuing the investigation. 

Watch the video below.

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