Jonathan Mullins was supposed to be celebrating the holidays with his family in Cortland, Ohio, on Christmas Day. Instead, he was in Detroit, where he had been stuck for six hours, sitting across from an FBI agent who was questioning him about the now-infamous bombing attempt on his flight.
Mullins, a third-year finance major at Ohio State, was on Northwest Airlines Flight 253, the plane that was targeted in a failed bombing attempt by a Nigerian national popularly known as “the Christmas Day bomber.”
“I was watching a movie when it happened and took off my earphones when I heard some commotion, which was mainly just loud noises and everyone in the mid-section of the plane standing up,” he said. “The only thing we were hearing from the flight attendants and from other passengers was that there was a man that tried to light a firecracker. The flight attendants and pilot repeated that to us two or three times after the situation was all taken care of.”
Upon landing, it became clear to Mullins and the rest of the passengers that it was more than a firecracker. Mullins says he and other passengers were escorted by police vehicles to customs.
Once there, both passengers and crew were held for two hours before bomb sniffing dogs checked them and their possessions.
About five hours later, Mullins said, FBI agents began individually interviewing passengers.
Though he hadn’t seen anything unusual, Mullins says the interview was very thorough and professional, even if the FBI agent and Mullins had a natural rivalry.
“He was a Michigan fan, so he told me he wasn’t too happy to be interviewing me,” Mullins chuckled. “He asked if I saw anyone else acting suspiciously, did I hear anything among passengers, questions along those lines.”
Unable to access his bags or use his cell phone for six hours, Mullins couldn’t contact his parents, who were waiting for him in Cleveland to pick him up after nearly four months studying at Bocconi University in Italy. About that time, the attempted bombing began to make international headlines.
“It was family members back at my house that told my parents what had happened through seeing it on the news. I was [eventually] able to talk to them for quite a while and they left Cleveland to come pick me up in Detroit since there were no more flights until the next day.”
Now back at OSU, Mullins says his family and friends were stunned to hear that he was on the much-talked-about flight. And he still isn’t completely comfortable with it himself.
“This experience definitely made me much more cautious of people. Who knows who’s out there and what their intentions are anymore?” he said. “But at the same time I am thankful for the people that did take action: the passenger that put out the flames and the others that helped, and also the flight attendants.”
The passenger Mullins referred to was Jasper Schuringa, a Dutchman who reportedly tackled Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab when he attempted to set off explosives in the plane.
While the experience has clearly had an effect on Mullins, his friends and family have done their best to help him readjust to life in Columbus.
“Everyone that I’ve mentioned or talked about this incident with has just told me how glad they were that everything’s OK, and has asked me, will I ever fly again?” he said, “and I say, ‘Not anytime soon.'”
