Passenger arrested after mid-flight ‘emergency’

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A 45-year-old man has been arrested after sparking a mid-air emergency with his frightening ranting on board a Malaysia Airlines plane that departed Sydney International Airport.

Fellow passengers endured an hours-long ordeal when Flight MH122 took off for Kuala Lumpur around 1pm on Monday and was turned back.

The A330 aircraft with 194 passengers and five crew landed at Sydney International Airport nearly four hours later at 3.47pm.

The man was hand-cuffed by Australian Federal Police and spent the night in custody at Mascot Police Station. He was expected to be charged on Tuesday.

As the nightmare unfolded, some passengers posted to social media, saying a man had been yelling at flight attendants and making threats.

One video showed the passenger’s bizarre tirade in which he reportedly told flight attendants he had a bomb in his bag.

Tweet from @jawadmnazir

In footage posted to X (Twitter) he can be heard saying: “My name is Mohammed, slave of Allah”.

“Are you a slave of Allah? Are you? Say it. Say it! Are you a slave of Allah?”

One passenger, Muhammad Zubair, described the man as a “lunatic”.

“This guy now said it was his test, he was trying to wake Muslims,” he wrote on X.

“Kudus to the staff for putting up with his bs.”

Another passenger posted that the man had been making threats and references to Islam and kneeling in the aisle of the aircraft.

“This lunatic is getting aggressive & poor people on board are still waiting for security to get in and take him … #MH122 is taken hostage by this lunatic giving Billions of Muslims a bad name,” posted Jaward Nazir.

“I’ve never been so scared,” another passenger said.

The AFP said an “emergency response plan” was activated.

“An evacuation was initiated once it was deemed safe for passengers and crew,” the AFP said in a statement.

The incident also resulted in dozens of domestic flight delays at Sydney Airport.

No international services were cancelled.

Late on Monday, Malaysia Airlines said the commander of the flight had made a decision to turn back “in the interest of safety”.