Passenger Tries To Open Flight Door Midair, Says 'See You In Heaven'

A pilot was forced to make an emergency landing in Croatia after a passenger attempted to open the flight's door midair.

The terrifying incident took place on board a TUI Airways flight on Tuesday. The plane was heading from Cyprus to the U.K., and had reached halfway to its destination when the unidentified man, who appeared to be drunk, started acting out and yelling threats, Melissa Brown, a mom on board the flight with her kids, told Kennedy News.

Brown, 32, who was on her way back home from a summer gateway in Paphos, Cyprus, with her partner and two children, recalled chaos ensued following the sudden turn of events, with everybody running to the rear of the aircraft in fear, grabbing their children and screaming "Help! we're going to die!"

"He was being disruptive and making people quite agitated and scared," Brown said. "My daughter was getting really worked up and upset because we could tell he was intoxicated, definitely as he was swaying and stuff like that."

"All of a sudden, he just jumped up in the middle of the plane near the emergency exit and started making hand signals to everybody, praying really loudly in a different language," Brown said.

The mom-of-two told the media outlet the man, who was speaking in English, said, "I'll see you all in heaven," during the midair mayhem.

Brown, who had started praying by then, said a flight attendant then told her they were having difficulty tackling him.

Fortunately, a few passengers and two off-duty police officers, who were on the aircraft, managed to bring him under control.

Due to the uncalled-for situation, the pilot was forced to divert the flight to Zagreb, Croatia, where the aircraft made an emergency late-night landing, and the man was nabbed by the local police.

The name of the man wasn't released by the Croatian or the British media. It remains unclear whether the police were pressing charges against him.

Brown said all the passengers were made to alight from the aircraft, and ended up stranded at the Croatian airport.

Meanwhile, TUI has issued a statement addressing the incident. "The health and safety of our customers and crew is always our highest priority and due to a disruptive passenger the flight was forced to divert to Zagreb, Croatia. The passenger was offloaded, was met by Police will not travel with TUI when the flight departs later today. We take a zero-tolerance approach to disruptive behavior on our flights," it said in the news release, according to the New York Post.