Passengers Ran Out of Zip Ties. So They Reached for the Duct Tape Instead.

It started as verbal. It didn't stay that way. By the time the flight from Dallas-Fort Worth to Newark landed — three hours late, in the wrong city — a passenger was bound to his seat with duct tape from his hands to his head, and two other travelers had been bitten.

The passenger, identified as 67-year-old Arthur Lundeen of Tucson, Arizona, allegedly began screaming racial and homophobic slurs mid-flight. A retired law-enforcement officer on board witnessed him assault a fellow passenger, who said Lundeen bit him on the hand and forearm.

A flight attendant handed out zip ties, and passengers used them to bind Lundeen's hands. It didn't hold — he kept fighting and pulling free — so they moved to duct tape, ultimately securing his hands, legs, torso, and head to the seat.

The flight was diverted to Baltimore/Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport, where law enforcement took Lundeen into custody. He's been charged with disorderly conduct and second-degree assault.

Unruly-passenger incidents happen regularly enough that most don't break through online. This one did, largely because of how far the restraint went — duct tape covering someone's head is a genuinely startling image, even against the backdrop of how routine mid-flight disturbances have become since 2021. It's also a reminder of how much authority has shifted, in these moments, from flight crew to whichever passengers happen to be sitting closest.