HEBRON, Ky. — “I looked and he had a box knife that was about this big with the blade still in it.”
A Northern Kentucky woman sitting next to the man who got a box cutter on a Frontier flight to Tampa said she does not understand how he got it past Transportation Security Administration (TSA) agents.
From the moment he got on the plane, Lillian Hoffman said the man next to her was agitated.
“He dropped all of his stuff, lost his shoe on the plane, finally kind of picked it up and it was really different,” Hoffman said.
It got worse once the plane took off.
“He ended up looking over to the guy sitting by the window and told him that he was wanting to stab people,” Hoffman said.
On Friday, a man with a box cutter threatened to stab people on a Frontier flight to Tampa. I talked with the woman who was sitting next to him and saw him fidgeting with the box cutter. @WCPO pic.twitter.com/xY5pjDBPp2
— Jessica Hart WCPO (@JessicaHartTV) November 14, 2022
She added the man finally got out of his seat to use the restroom. The other passenger sitting by the window said they needed to say something.
Hoffman got up and told the flight crew at the front of the plane what was happening. She said a Navy veteran volunteered to switch seats with Hoffman until they landed in Atlanta.
Hoffman’s friend Amy Deye was sitting near the man with a box cutter. She and another passenger told the flight attendant at the back of the plane what was happening.
“We told her and we’re like, 'Hey look, the guy that was sitting here that’s in the bathroom, he has knife and he wants to stab someone.' And she was like 'You guys are joking right, like, that’s your friend.' And we’re like, 'No we have no idea who this guy is and we are being 100% serious,'" Deye said.
Deye said when the man came back, he saw the veteran in her friend's seat.
“The suspect finally came back and took one look up and down — very tall, broad gentleman, very sweet, and he’s like 'Hey this is my seat.' He’s like 'No this seat is occupied,' and (he said), 'Yeah, by me.' At that point in time, he turned around and went back to the back and we thankfully didn’t see him again,” Deye said.
Deye said the man with the box cutter sat at the back of the plane. She said a former parole officer kept him calm until the plane landed.
Hoffman said that’s when things got scarier.
“They exited everyone off the plane, single file, kinda by row and at the very end while they were trying to get people off he charged the flight attendant wielding the box knife towards her, so the Air Force veteran ended up tackling him until police officers could come arrest him and get him off the plane,” she said.
The man with a box cutter was arrested in Atlanta.
Watch body cam footage of the man's arrest (Warning: vulgar language):
Hoffman said she hopes the TSA becomes more diligent when it comes to screening and physical searches. She noted another passenger on their flight said they have traveled with a box cutter on a plane before.
A spokesperson for the TSA said the employees involved in the man’s search have been placed in a training status for remediation on CT image review and physical searches, but the situation has some flyers concerned for their safety.
“It’s scary," said Janice Wittich. "I would never think in this day and age and everything that’s been, new technology and all the tax dollars spent with all the new machines that something like that would get through."
Deye said the next time she plans to go to Florida, she might just drive.
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