Passenger 'heard a pop and saw smoke and fire'

Washington: A man who witnessed the attempted destruction of a Northwest Airlines flight to Detroit -- by a Nigerian man claiming to be affiliated to the al-Qaeda -- said he was proud of how passengers reacted.

Syed Jafry of Holland, Ohio, near Toledo, who had flown from the United Arab Emirates, said after emerging from the airport that people ran out of their seats to tackle the man.

Jafry was sitting in the 16th row -- three rows behind the suspect -- when he heard "a pop and saw some smoke and fire". Then, he said, "a young man behind me jumped on him".

Jafry said there was a little bit of commotion for about 10 to 15 minutes. The incident occurred during the plane's descent, he said.

He said the way passengers responded made him proud to be an American, reports Detroit Free Press Journal.

Dawn Griffith and her daughter, Jessica, both of Pontiac, knew her husband, Richard Griffith's flight from Amsterdam had landed at Metro Airport just before noon Christmas morning. Around 12.20 p.m. he called and told her he was about to get off the plane.

"I'll see you in a minute," he said. That was the last time she talked to him before he walked out of customs to greet her and their daughter around 5.30 p.m.

By 1 p.m., Dawn Griffith and dozens of others waiting saw a black man handcuffed to a stretcher with bandaged hands wheeled by medical personnel past them.

"He went right by me," Jessica Griffith said. "He was very young looking," Dawn Griffith added.

Richard Griffith said he was unaware of the incident until departing the plane.

He said he was sitting in the back and did not "see or hear anything".

One by one, the passengers deplaned with similar and various bits of the story. Most were harried from the hours they were held by law enforcement officials.

Agent Donald Dawkins, spokesman with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives in Detroit, said the bureau's K-9 unit searched the bags. No other explosives or contraband were found in the suspect's luggage or any other passenger's.

By all accounts, the suspect was immediately tackled by at least one man, and several other passengers ran towards him immediately trying to put the fire out.

"Smoke, flames, yelling and screaming," are what Iliana Schilke of Livonia remembered, sitting a couple of rows behind the suspect. "It was scary when it happened."

Schilke, like other passengers, said she saw a man jump over his seat to get to the suspect. He was apparently burned in the process.

"It was a fire, it wasn't just a firecracker, it was a fire," Calvin Kakar of New York said, seated a few rows in front of the suspect. "We heard a pop and the next thing you know it was a fire."

Jasmin Samimi of Findlay, Ohio, was also seated a few rows in front of the fire. Returning from Ethiopia, she too heard the popping sound, smelled smoke, and saw flames coming from his seat.

She was able to send a text to her mother, Jeannia Samimi, that there was a fire on the plane.

"Then," Jeannia Samimi said, "It's like silence." The passengers said they were told to turn off their cell phones.

More than one person, like Richelle Keepman, of Oconomowoc, saw another passenger taping the incident with a video camera.

"We just saw a man filming it and heard screaming," said Keepman, who was seated in the back of the plane and didn't see the incident occur.

Passengers yelled for water, flight attendants ran to get the fire extinguisher and the fire was soon doused.

Samimi saw the suspect taken in a chokehold to the front of the plane.

Veena Saigl of Ann Arbor said she saw "a sturdy guy put a lock on his head. His pants were down".

"It sounded like a firecracker in a pillowcase," said Peter Smith, a passenger from the Netherlands. "First there was a pop, and then (there) was smoke."