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On August 11, 2000 (herein referred to as the 8/11 incident), on a routine flight from Las Vegas to Salt Lake City, a muscular young man stood up out of his seat and a turning point was reached in passengers’ attitude towards flying.
At the gate earlier, 19-year-old Jonathan Burton, tall, blonde, and square jawed, with an open smile and a football player’s build, had just said a cheerful goodbye to his mother. An hour later, eyes dilated, he was pacing up and down the aisle, telling a flight attendant, “I’m fine. It’s just the drugs.” Suddenly he charged from the back to the front of the plane, screaming, “I can fly this plane!” before leaping up and kicking through the cockpit door.

Reports vary on what happened in the pandemonium that followed, but all agree that a few male passengers jumped up and blockaded the cockpit while a female flight attendant and several other male passengers eased Jonathan, who had recently watched a TV special on plane crashes, towards a seat on the exit row. As they did so, he suddenly lunged for the emergency exit, screaming that he had to get out of the plane. Passengers again restrained and soothed him, asking questions to distract him from his fear. They seemed to have calmed Burton down, when a passenger said, he “went ballistic” on hearing that an off-duty policeman had come to help. Powered by panic and adrenaline, he seemed unstoppable as he kicked, bit, and punched as many as eight men, hitting the policeman hard enough to spray blood around the cabin.

At that point it was as if an emotional switch had been thrown. The passengers, presumably bursting with their own adrenaline, began pounding and kicking Burton all over his body, pinning him to the floor long after he’d gone limp. Within hours, Burton died of strangulation. According to the autopsy report, when police walked on the plane they found him lying face down, “with at least one individual standing on his neck.”

Known as a gentle soul who’d won an award for his work with the elderly, Burton had no history of mental illness. The autopsy showed just barely detectable trace amounts of cocaine and THC (the active ingredient in marijuana) in his system—probably not from recent use and not enough to account for his outburst. The death was ruled a non-criminal homicide, and no charges were filed.

What turned Jonathan Burton from a harmless passenger into a threat to the safety of Flight 1763? And what turned his fellow passengers from supportive helpers into a death-dealing mob? This book will examine the potential answers to those questions and look at what can be done to minimize future such “air rage” episodes.