Passengers who restrained 19-year-old Jonathon Burton after a violent outburst on Southwest Airlines Flight 1763 were praised in several witness accounts released by the FBI.
"I feel by doing what they did it protected everybody on the plane," wrote one passenger in an incident report contained in the 532 pages released Tuesday by the FBI.
But many on the plane had less than flattering opinions of how Southwest's flight crew handled Burton's bizarre outburst.
Names were blacked out of the documents obtained by the Deseret News under the Freedom of Information Act.
The reams of previously sealed documents revealed little new information into Burton's bizarre death during the Aug. 11 flight from Las Vegas to Salt Lake City.
Passengers stated Burton kept yelling "someone fly this plane," appeared to be on drugs and had "superhuman strength" as five to eight men restrained him.
Burton began pacing the aisle of the plane roughly 20 minutes before the aircraft landed. Some passengers told investigators Burton took a drink from the flight attendant's cart and eventually tried to break through the cockpit door.
Some accounts indicated Burton's entire upper body was through the cockpit door. Passengers eventually calmed Burton down enough to sit him in a seat near the plane's emergency exit.
For the next several minutes, Burton went from calm to unnerved.
Some said turbulence sent Burton into frequent panics. But more than one passenger claimed it was a flight attendant who seemed to provoke Burton.
"One of the flight attendants exacerbated the situation by approaching Burton, shaking her finger in his face and yelling at him," one passenger told investigators.
Southwest officials have vigorously defended the crew's actions. All the pilots and flight attendants from Flight 1763 have remained with the airline, spokeswoman Ginger Hardage said. The incident, however, has prompted a reassessment of Southwest's policy in dealing with unruly passengers.
"We are certainly continuing to study the situation to see what could be done differently in the future," Hardage said. "It took six to eight men to restrain Jonathon. It would have been impossible for the two female flight attendants who were in that part of the cabin to have restrained him."
One of the flight attendants located a burly passenger who tried to calm Burton down as he sat in the seat.
It was eventually decided Burton should be moved from his seat near the emergency exit to a seat farther back in the plane so he couldn't open the door while the plane was landing.
That's when Burton snapped.
He punched one of the men standing near him, leaving the passenger with a bloody face.
Accounts of how violent things got after that vary.
One passenger told investigators he saw a man "cussing and jumping up and down on" Burton.
But another passenger told investigators "at least one individual was standing on but not jumping up and down on Burton."
One passenger told investigators one of the men kept his foot on Burton's throat for 20 minutes.
"At some point, another passenger told the individual not to choke Burton with his foot. The passenger replied, 'Then tell him to quit fighting.' "
When Burton's limp, bloodied body was removed from the plane, most passengers thought he was still alive. He was taken to LDS Hospital and later died.
An autopsy report from the State Medical Examiner's Office ruled Burton's death a homicide caused by "compressional and positional asphyxia due to restraint."
Small traces of cocaine and THC, the active ingredient in marijuana, were found in Burton's body. The medical examiner, however, ruled those chemicals were "an unlikely explanation" for Burton's behavior.
The U.S. Attorney's Office declined to file criminal charges against any of the crew or passengers, but Burton's family has hired an attorney to look into a possible civil suit.
Whatever happens, the differing accounts of Burton's deadly flight have cast a further shadow of mystique around the bizarre case.
"Everybody has a little bit different perspective based on their life experiences," FBI spokesman Bill Matthews said. "You'll never be able to piece together exactly what happens. What we try to do is look at it overall and look at what these people's intent was.
"I think if you read with that in mind, in general, most of the statements are all in sync as far as their general attitude about the danger and the amount of force that was used."
E-MAIL: djensen@desnews.com