Woman ‘attempts to storm Jet2 cockpit’ and asks if children are ‘ready to die’

Phillip O’Brien got the passenger in a hold and helped crew members secure them in a chair on the Jet2 flight from Cyprus to Manchester. The woman had allegedly brought explosives on board the plane and asked the children she was travelling with if they were “ready to die”. She had allegedly shouted “Allahu Akbar” as she attempted to enter the cockpit.

It is claimed the woman, who is in her 30s, said her parents were members of the terrorist group, Isis. The pilot diverted the plane to Paris and she was led away.

Drainage firm boss Phillip, from Macclesfield, Cheshire, had been travelling with six of his family members including his wife and three children aged eight to 14.

The 35-year-old, who worked in security as a teenager, told The Mirror: “Everything was normal and then shortly after take-off a woman walked up the aisle naked and banged on the cockpit door shouting ‘Allahu Akbar’.

“As you can imagine everyone was sh**ing themselves.

“I spoke to staff and said, ‘Why have you not put her to the floor?’. They said, ‘We’re not able to’. I said, ‘Well I am’.

“So when the woman went to the cockpit again I took control, took her to the ground and at that point the pilot did an emergency landing to Paris.”

Mr O’Brien said he asked the woman why she was saying such things and she replied: “If I didn’t there’s going to be an explosion and everybody is going to die”.

Jet2 said the Larnaca to Manchester flight was diverted to Paris in the early hours of Tuesday morning, August 9, so a “disruptive passenger could be offloaded”.

It is not clear what happened to the woman after she was taken away.