Flight canceled after woman reports suspicious behavior by passengers

KTRK logo
Thursday, December 17, 2015
Flight canceled in Houston after disturbance
The KLM flight was searched and given the all clear, but the plane never made it out of Houston.

HOUSTON -- A KLM flight bound for Amsterdam was canceled Wednesday after a passenger disturbance grounded the plane at Bush Intercontinental Airport for several hours.

Air France flight 8412 operated by KLM was supposed to depart at 4:03pm. However, it never made it out of the Bayou City.

"Normal. We checked in and everything was going smooth," passenger Travis Wilson said.

But then the drama unfolded on a KLM flight leaving Bush Intercontinental Airport headed for Amsterdam.

"It's kind of scary when you don't really know what's going on," passenger Dieter Erhard said.

Travis Wilson and his wife are from France, but were in Houston on their honeymoon. They were onboard when they say two men started arguing.

"They were texting and they heard the gentleman say, 'Now, now, now,'" Wilson said.

Passengers say an elderly woman sitting beside the men alerted a flight attendant.

"She got out and reported to gentleman acting very suspiciously," Wilson said.

"The captain said we are very sorry to passengers have misbehaved," Erhard said. "Security came in today and a whole bunch of them."

Those two men were handcuffed and escorted off the plane. The flight returned to a cargo area, where passengers were eventually removed.

At the end of all the chaos, airport police and FBI officials determined the two men taken off the flight were not a threat. They were released, but the flight was canceled.

"Better safe than sorry," Wilson said.

An airport spokesperson said passengers were being re-booked on a case-by-case basis.