'Demonic' Attack Ends in Irate Passenger Duct Taped to Seat, Thanks to Gun Guy Who Defended Jewish-Christian Author
One moment, a couple of guys were killing time on an American Airlines flight from Dallas to Newark. The next, one of them was a duct-taped mummy after an incident one participant referred to as “demonic.”
The plane landed early in Baltimore on Thursday after a passenger went berserk, according to CBS News.
“Just like a light switch, all of a sudden, it went from quiet to yelling and chaos,” Juan Mejia, a retired law enforcement officer, described.
“I turned around to look, and the poor gentleman that was sitting next to him in the aisle seat, the individual had his hands around his neck and was, like, assaulting him.”
Mejia and fellow passenger Richard Olenick immobilized the man with zip ties provided by a flight attendant and a few yards of duct tape.
Seatmate of crazed duct-taped plane passenger reveals what sparked wild mid-flight meltdown: ‘Something had taken him over’ https://t.co/ss7khPVsh8 pic.twitter.com/9PyPbqqCha
— New York Post (@nypost) September 8, 2026
Rabbi and author Jonathan Cahn said he and Layne Arthur Lundeen, 67, were having a “friendly” discussion about religion before a “demonic” transformation took place, according to the Daily Mail.
Cahn, the leader of the Beth Israel Worship Center in Wayne, New Jersey, said after a couple of drinks, Lundeen began cursing God.
“His face changed, his voice changed, and he said… almost in a whisper, he was like, ‘I have something to tell you,’ and he said, ‘Bulls***,’” Cahn said.
“He’s getting louder, and he starts cursing God, cursing Jesus, cursing me. And then he said, ‘Go f*** yourself.’ This was from nothing. It wasn’t like there was any real argument,” Cahn said.
“It was a split second. The change was like unbelievable. It was two hours of friendly, and then in one second it just changed to the most different voice, different faith, different guy. It was as if something had taken him over,” he said.
Cahn said he tried to disengage, but after his fellow passenger snarled at a flight attendant, it was back to hostility, alleging Lundeen put “both hands around my neck.”
“He’s doing like he’s playing, but it was threatening and it was a just bizarre thing,” Cahn said.
Cahn showed Lundeen the cover of his new book, the “Altar of Pergamon,” on his computer, which apparently was the last straw.
“When he saw the book cover, that’s when he started getting violent. I could only describe it what happened as demonic. It was like he was influenced by the dark side,” he said, alleging that the man said, “I’m gonna punch your f***ing Jewish face in.”
“I knew I was in danger. I knew it was going towards violence. I was trying to keep calm,” he said.
He alleged that during the struggle, Lundeen broke Cahn’s laptop and hurt Cahn’s already injured arm.
TMZ reported that other allegations against Lundeen were that he used the n-word and made homophobic slurs during the incident.
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