You’re buckled into your window seat, maybe watching a movie or half-asleep, and the guy a few rows up decides he wants to leave the airplane. Not when it lands. Right now. At 36,000 feet. That nightmare scenario played out on a United Airlines flight last week, and it wasn’t even the only incident that month. Two separate flights in late May saw passengers try to pry open cabin doors while the planes were cruising at altitude, and in both cases, the flights were forced to divert so law enforcement could haul the offenders off in handcuffs.
Here’s everything we know about both incidents, why the doors can’t actually open at altitude (thankfully), what happens to the people who try, and why this keeps happening in 2026.
The United Airlines Flight That Diverted to Dulles
On Thursday, May 21st, United Flight 1551 took off from Newark Liberty International Airport headed for Guatemala City. It was a Boeing 737 MAX 8 carrying 145 passengers and six crew members. Things went sideways fast. According to federal authorities, a male passenger tried to open Door 2L while the aircraft was at cruising altitude, then attacked a fellow passenger near the same door.
Air traffic control audio captured the pilot’s exchange with Potomac Approach controllers. When a controller asked which door the passenger had targeted, the pilot responded plainly: “Door 2L at 36,000 feet, and then assaulted a fellow passenger.” That kind of calm, matter-of-fact delivery from the cockpit tells you everything about how trained pilots handle chaos. The rest of the plane? Probably not so calm.
FlightAware records show the plane departed Newark at 6:46 p.m. and touched down at Washington Dulles International Airport at 8:38 p.m., well short of Guatemala City. Federal law enforcement met the aircraft and took the man into custody. The nature of the assaulted passenger’s injuries wasn’t immediately released. United canceled the original flight, put passengers up in hotels overnight, and scheduled a replacement departure for Friday morning.
Nine Days Later, It Happened Again on Frontier
If you thought once was bad enough, Frontier Airlines had its own version of this mess on May 31. Flight 3345 was heading from San Juan, Puerto Rico, to Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport when 51-year-old Juan Reyes allegedly went on a tear. According to police reports, Reyes tried to open exit doors mid-flight, attempted to break into the cockpit, choked an off-duty flight attendant, and tried to urinate on the bathroom floor. That’s quite a list for one flight.
Flight attendants told police that Reyes said he “wanted to get off the plane” while trying to open the emergency exits. When crew members tried to redirect him back to his seat, he ignored them and charged toward the front of the aircraft, where he attempted to force his way into the pilot’s cabin. After multiple failed attempts to get him seated, the crew moved him to a different spot and an off-duty flight attendant volunteered to sit in the aisle seat of his row to keep an eye on him.
That didn’t last. When the off-duty attendant got up to use the restroom, Reyes tried to grab the man’s bag. When confronted, Reyes attacked, putting his hands around the attendant’s throat. That’s when the other passengers stepped in.
The MMA Fighter in Seat 31C
Sitting a few rows away was Josh Longood, a 37-year-old former professional MMA fighter from Mansfield, Ohio, who was flying home from his brother’s bachelor party in Puerto Rico. Longood saw the chaos unfold and made a quick decision. “I knew I had to be the one to step in and I knew I could do it safely without anybody getting injured,” he told reporters afterward.
Longood restrained Reyes, but the situation wasn’t over quickly. Reyes kept trying to slip out of the restraints during the descent to Miami, and Longood had to physically hold him down for roughly 30 minutes until the plane landed. He described it in pretty memorable terms: “I just kind of sat with him, holding him down and kind of treated him like a little kid that was throwing a tantrum, just held him down and did what I needed to do.”
Longood said he believes alcohol fueled the suspect’s behavior. He also said that while wrestling and MMA had been part of his life for a long time, this was the first time he’d ever used those skills outside of a gym or competition. The plane landed safely at Miami International Airport around 11:55 p.m., where Miami-Dade Sheriff’s police arrested Reyes on a battery charge. The FBI also questioned him, and he’s now facing federal charges including interference with flight crew members.
Can You Actually Open an Airplane Door at 36,000 Feet?
Here’s the one piece of good news in all of this: no, you can’t. It’s physically impossible to open an airplane cabin door at cruising altitude, and it has nothing to do with locks or latches. It’s physics.
At 36,000 feet, the cabin is pressurized to keep everyone breathing normally. That pressurization creates an enormous force pushing outward against the doors from the inside. Most commercial aircraft doors are “plug” type, meaning they have to swing inward before they can be moved outward. The pressure differential at cruise altitude makes that inward motion impossible. You’d need superhuman strength, and even then, the laws of physics wouldn’t cooperate.
The doors are also mechanically locked during flight and controlled from the cockpit. As aerospace engineering professor Steve Wright has explained, the doors only unlock when the plane lands. Only after the pilot announces “doors to manual” can they actually be opened. So regardless of how determined someone is, that door is not budging at altitude.
The one exception? Very low altitude. In 2023, a passenger on an Asiana Airlines A321 flight managed to open a door at about 700 feet, just minutes before landing, when the pressure differential was weak enough. Nine passengers were hospitalized from that incident. South Korea later made it mandatory for airlines to warn passengers before takeoff not to mess with exit row doors, and Asiana stopped selling certain emergency exit seats on affected aircraft.
The Real Danger Isn’t the Door Opening
Even though the door won’t open, these incidents are still serious. The actual danger comes from everything surrounding the attempt. Passengers and crew get assaulted. Flights get diverted, burning tens of thousands of dollars in fuel and operational costs. Other passengers miss connections, lose vacation days, and sit terrified in their seats wondering what’s happening.
On the United flight, a passenger was physically attacked. On the Frontier flight, an off-duty flight attendant was choked. These aren’t minor disturbances. They’re violent crimes happening in a sealed metal tube at 36,000 feet where nobody can leave and help is a long way down. Attempted cockpit breaches and door-opening incidents rank among the most serious forms of unruly passenger behavior according to the FAA, and they trigger immediate crew intervention protocols.
What Happens Legally When You Try This
The FAA does not mess around with unruly passengers. Under their zero-tolerance policy, there are no warnings, no counseling sessions, no second chances. If you interfere with a crew member, the agency goes straight to enforcement action. Civil penalties can reach $43,658 per violation, and one incident can rack up multiple violations. The FAA imposed its largest individual fines in 2022, hitting two passengers with penalties of $77,272 and $81,950.
On the criminal side, things get even heavier. Under federal law, interfering with flight crew can lead to felony charges carrying up to 20 years in prison and a $250,000 fine. The Department of Justice has made prosecuting in-flight crimes a stated priority, and the FAA routinely refers serious cases to the FBI. In one case, a woman was sentenced to four months in prison and ordered to pay over $9,000 in restitution just for causing a disturbance that led to a diversion. In another, a passenger who punched a Southwest flight attendant paid nearly $26,000 in restitution plus a $7,500 fine.
Then there’s the airline ban. Carriers maintain their own internal no-fly lists, and violent behavior is the fastest way to end up on one. These bans can be permanent, and there’s no standardized appeals process. The FAA’s threat level system categorizes these incidents into four escalating tiers, with attempted door openings and cockpit breaches falling near the top. The TSA can also suspend or permanently revoke PreCheck enrollment for passengers involved in security incidents.
2026 Is Shaping Up to Be a Bad Year for Passenger Behavior
The United and Frontier incidents didn’t happen in a vacuum. Airlines have already reported more than 640 unruly passenger incidents to the FAA in 2026, and the year isn’t even half over. Just days before the Frontier incident, another United flight, this one from Chicago to Minneapolis, was diverted to Madison, Wisconsin, after a passenger repeatedly tried to break into the cockpit. Air traffic control recordings confirmed multiple attempts before the person was restrained.
The numbers did drop significantly from the record highs of early 2021, when pandemic-related tensions were at their peak. But the FAA has acknowledged that recent increases show there’s still a serious problem. When you combine alcohol, cramped spaces, delayed flights, and the general state of air travel in 2026, it’s not hard to see why flight crews are on edge.
For passengers like Josh Longood, who just wanted to get home from a bachelor party, the question becomes a simple one. If something goes wrong at 36,000 feet, are you willing to step in? He didn’t hesitate. “I know I’m capable of doing something like that,” he said. “I know that I can do that and help people be safe.” Not everyone on a plane has MMA training. But everyone on that Frontier flight was lucky someone did.