Disruptive passenger in first-class duct-taped to his seat

A disruptive passenger was restrained with flexible handcuffs and duct-taped to a seat as his flight was diverted to make an emergency landing in Baltimore Thursday night (local time), photos and video from other passengers showed.

Richard Olenick and Juan Mejia were more than halfway through the flight when a man two rows behind them in the first-class section started to become belligerent, Olenick said.

American Airlines Flight 618 was travelling from Dallas Fort Worth International Airport to Newark when the crew reported the passenger disturbance, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) said in a statement.

A flight attendant tried to control the situation but the man got increasingly agitated, started to hit the passenger next to him and then hit a woman who tried to intervene, Olenick said.

Upon seeing things turn physical, Mejia, who is a retired New Jersey police officer, got up and Olenick followed.