Unruly passenger to be charged

A man who was restrained on board faces a felony count

An unruly passenger who threatened to harm a baby on a Honolulu-bound flight on Friday and was restrained by four fellow passengers will be charged tomorrow in federal court, an FBI spokesman said yesterday.

Santiago Lol Tizol, 37, is expected to be charged with interference with a flight crew, a felony under federal law, and possibly additional charges, said Federal Bureau of Investigation spokesman Brandon Simpson.

Tizol has been held at the federal detention center in Honolulu since 11 p.m. Friday, Simpson said. He would not say where Tizol lives.

Tizol was among 177 passengers and crew on Northwest Flight 91 from Los Angeles to Honolulu. Other passengers reported that about midway through the flight Tizol "started acting erratically, strangely," said Scott Ishikawa, spokesman for the state Department of Transportation.

"At one point the man was threatening to harm another passenger's infant in the business-class section of plane," Ishikawa said. "It got to a boiling point, where some of the passengers felt they had to restrain him."

Ishikawa said the man was restrained with plastic handcuffs.

The plane arrived in Honolulu at 6:45 p.m. Friday and was held at the gate for an hour while law enforcement officials questioned passengers about the incident, Ishikawa said.

In December 2003, a former Washington state prison inmate charged the cockpit of a Honolulu-to-Seattle flight and was charged with interfering with a flight crew. He was later found not guilty by reason of insanity and ordered to undergo medical treatment.