A Northwest Airlines jet made an unscheduled landing after a man caught smoking in the plane's bathroom pounded on a cockpit door and demanded to see the pilot, authorities said.
The passenger was taken into custody after the plane landed Tuesday at Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport. The jet then continued its flight from Los Angeles to Detroit.FBI agents questioned the man, but released him because they were unable to immediately interview the crew and other passengers, said Carmen Piccirillo, a supervisory special agent with the FBI's Minneapolis office.
Charges were pending Wednesday, Piccirillo said. Interfering with a flight crew is a federal crime with a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison and a $10,000 fine.
The man became angry, and flight attendants worried about his mental stability, Northwest spokesman Doug Miller said.
"His actions were somewhat threatening, and they just didn't want to run the risk of his condition getting worse," Miller said.
There was no physical confrontation, but the passenger went to the first-class section of the plane several times and demanded to go into the cockpit, Miller said. Passengers said the man became angry when confronted by the crew after smoking in the bathroom of the airplane.
In 1988, Congress banned smoking on all domestic flights of less than two hours, and Northwest voluntarily banned smoking on all its domestic flights except those to and from Hawaii.