In-flight movies may feature martial arts, but some airline passengers apparently got to see the real thing on a recent flight that ended with a man being subdued by air marshals.
The incident happened on a Delta Air Lines plane en route from Paris to Atlanta last Thursday, according to a complaint filed in the U.S. District Court of Georgia.
A woman said she was asleep when the passenger seated behind her, identified as Brian Louis Pomykala, woke her up by “forcibly fondling and grabbing her face and head and then gesturing toward his crotch area indicating that he needed some sex,” according to the complaint.
The woman’s companion sought help from flight attendants who alerted two air marshals on board the flight, the complaint says.
When they approached Pomykala and asked him to go to the rear of the plane to explain what happened, he said he was not going anywhere, court papers allege.
Pomykala then struck one of the air marshals in the throat “with a bladed, karate-style thrust strike” and followed with a choke hold move, according to the complaint.
The air marshal was able to put Pomykala in a head lock and handcuff him with the help of the other air marshal, court papers say. Pomykala spent the rest of the flight in the rear galley jump seat. Law enforcement officials met the plane when it landed in Atlanta.
A. Pawlowski, CNN
