Air bomb scare man had mental illness

SHORTLY after boarding a plane, passengers say they saw a man bolt from his seat and run down the aisle, with his screaming wife and man in a Hawaiian shirt behind.

“My husband! My husband!” one passenger said she heard the wife cry.

The chase ended moments later on Wednesday on a Miami International Airport jetway, when authorities say Rigoberto Alpizar appeared to reach for his bag. He was shot to death by the man in the Hawaiian shirt and a second pursuer, both undercover air marshals.

Before he ran off the plane he “uttered threatening words that included a sentence to the effect that he had a bomb”, said James Bauer, agent in charge of the Federal Air Marshal Service field office in Miami.

No bomb was found and federal officials concluded there was no link to terrorism. Witnesses said the man’s wife, Anne, frantically tried to explain he was bipolar, a mental illness also known as manic-depression, and was off his medication.

“She said it was her fault, that he was bipolar,” said Mike Beshears, a Flight 924 passenger. “He was sick and she had convinced him to get on the plane.”

The flight had arrived in Miami from Bogota, Colombia and was to continue on to Orlando.

It was the first time since the September 11 attacks that an air marshal discharged a firearm at a passenger or suspect, a Homeland Security Department spokesperson said.

Dave Adams, a spokesman for the air marshals, confirmed there were two marshals on the flight and said both fired at Mr Alpizar.

“They felt their life was threatened,” he said. “This was a textbook scenario and they acted instinctively based on the training.”

The Bush administration hired thousands of additional air marshals after September 11, when the nation had only 33. Marshals fly undercover, and which planes they’re on is a closely guarded secret.

Officials declined to say how many times Mr Alpizar was shot, but passengers reported hearing between four to six shots.

Several Colombian journalists were aboard the plane making a trip to Orlando, including journalist Gerardo Chavez of the newspaper El Tiempo.

He said after the shooting, police and federal agents who came aboard the plane thoroughly frisked passengers and then ordered them off the plane, “all of us with our hands on our heads”.

Investigators closed the concourse at the airport for half an hour and spread passengers’ bags on the tarmac. Dogs sniffed them for explosives and bomb squad members blew up at least two bags. No bombs were found.

The Alpizars had been married for about two decades and met when Anne was an exchange student in Costa Rica, family members said. Rigoberto became a naturalised US citizen.