Scariest Story Meme: Hijacked!

My friend Spaghettipie also hosts the Blog Tour Spot. She has tagged me to participate in a meme entitled:

What’s been one of the scariest (in a terrifying or humorous sense) thing you’ve ever experienced?

In the early 90's I was asked to go  with a family (as the nanny) on a trip to Las Vegas.  It was to be an awesome gig because this family was going to pay for all my trip expenses, including some great daytime activities like the really cool children's museum in Vegas, and an evening performance to Seigfried and Roy .

We left on a early Friday evening and were to return on Sunday. Everything was going swimmingly as we made it to the airport and we got on the plane. 

We were one of the first on the airplane and were sitting toward the front of the craft.  Dr and Mrs C sat in the row in front of me. I sat in the middle seat, with a girl on each side.  The girls were around the ages of four and seven.

We were getting settled in with crayons and books when an African American man, the size of a linebacker, boarded the plane with his petite female travel companion. 

He was kind of loud but it was only became a problem when he kneeled in his seat looking to the back of the plane and started hollering that if anyone wanted to talk about Jesus, that he wanted to talk to them. 

None of the flight attendants had said anything to him at this point and I looked at Dr. C. with a bit of concern. He looked back at me as if to say that we would be OK.

When none of the other passengers took up his offer to come talk with him about Jesus, he leaned over to the 7 year old sitting in the isle seat and asked her to come to his seat and talk with him.  This is when Mrs. C. leaned over and calmly asked him "to leave the children alone."

He didn't like that.

At this point it's important to tell you that we were waiting on the runway. It was also fortuitous that on this particular summer day there was a traffic jam on the runway and we were waiting in a long line of airplanes waiting to take off.  We were lucky that what I am about to tell you happened while on the ground, and not in the air.

So, Mrs. C tells him to back off and he gets irate. This is the part of the story when he gets out of his seat, takes off his clothes, starts yelling at the top of his voice, and pacing up and down the isle. Oh yeah, and also? He was yelling about how "This plane isn't going to Vegas it's going to heaven!" and talking in a strange guttural language that sounded very, VERY scary!

While the pilots try to get us back to the gate this crazy guy proceeds to rip the glasses off a ladies face. He's running and yelling back and forth in the isle while pounding his fists on the over head compartments causing them to spring open;  And he's screaming erratically about Jesus and Rodney King (which had just happened in LA a couple weeks before.)  

The flight attendant opened the door in anticipation of arriving at the concourse. Before the concourse could reach the door of the plane he pushed her out, and she fell several feet to the tarmac. 

I was scared. Maybe the most scared I have been in my life. But when I saw the police pointing a gun at this man within feet of where we were sitting I was FREAKED OUT!  The police were giving him an opportunity to surrender, but he kept yelling "That's right, just do me like Rodney King!"  Then he ran to the back of the airplane.

Little did our hijacker know that there were a handful of undercover cops sitting in the last few rows that were all bound for a Vegas Vacation.  They were able to subdue him in the rear of the plane while all the passengers up front unloaded.

I think it took five guys to hold him down.  But it may have been more.

As it turned out he was on quite a few illegal drugs. 

They hauled him off to jail and amazingly, about an hour later the airlines loaded us all up and we went to Vegas!

It ended up being a great weekend after all... 

Part of the rule was to tag 5 others to write there scariest story.  So I tag:

1. Life with Three

2. Such the Spot

3. Biding my Time

4. Feeling Moofish

5. The O-Show

6. Any one else who wants to play....just let me know where to find your scary story!