WATCH: Passenger tries to open an emergency exit door mid-flight on Frontier Airlines, luckily an MMA fighter was a row over

A passenger on a Frontier Airlines flight from San Juan to Chicago assaulted a flight attendant and tried to open an emergency exit door mid-flight. The plane had to make an emergency diversion to Miami. The man was restrained by fellow passengers, including Josh Longood, a former professional MMA fighter who happened to be sitting one row away and is apparently a light sleeper.

WATCH: Passenger tries to open an emergency exit door mid-flight on Frontier Airlines, luckily an MMA fighter was a row over

MMA FIGHTER into action mid-flight: It was Josh Longood, a former professional MMA fighter, jumped into action on a Frontier flight from Puerto Rico to Chicago when a passenger assaulted a flight attendant and tried to open an emergency exit door.

He said: "You board a flight… https://t.co/r4XtaMGeqz pic.twitter.com/ApLSdUKayZ

— FL360aero (@fl360aero) June 2, 2026

An MMA fighter. One row away. On a Frontier flight.

Talk about bad luck, right? This lunatic picked the worst possible plane to have a meltdown on. You’re going to assault a flight attendant and try to rip open an emergency door at 35,000 feet and the guy in the next row over is a professional cage fighter? That’s the universe intervening on behalf of everyone else on that aircraft.

Longood said he had to restrain the guy and tie him up. Then the psycho slipped the zip ties. So Longood had to physically hold him down for the remainder of the flight until the emergency landing in Miami.

Just pinning a grown man to the floor of a Frontier Airlines cabin while everyone else on the plane watched and prayed. His post afterward said “hoping my next flight is significantly more boring.” No kidding.

Of Course It Was Frontier

This is what happens when you fly Frontier Airlines. You save $47 on the ticket and the trade-off is sharing a pressurized metal tube at 35,000 feet with people who are genuinely unhinged.

Frontier is the Greyhound bus of the sky.

Spirit Airlines gets all the jokes but Frontier is right there with them in the poverty airline tier where anything can happen and usually does.

Why an MMA fighter is flying Frontier is its own question.

The man fights people for a living and he’s booking flights on an airline where the seats don’t recline and the overhead bins smell like someone’s lunch from three flights ago.

I’m not judging. Times are tough. Everyone’s trying to save a dollar but if you’re a professional fighter, you’d think the one splurge in your budget would be not flying the airline most likely to involve an in-flight altercation.

Then again, maybe Longood knew exactly what he was getting into. Maybe flying Frontier is his version of staying sharp between fights. Free sparring at cruising altitude.

These People Need to Be Dealt With Differently

I’m tired of the airplane lunatics. Every other week there’s a new story about some psycho trying to open a door mid-flight, assaulting a crew member, or causing a scene that forces an emergency landing. The TSA checks your shoes and confiscates your water bottle but somehow can’t screen for the people who are going to lose their minds at 35,000 feet and try to kill everyone on the plane by opening an emergency exit.

Longood restrained this guy. The plane diverted to Miami. The man was presumably arrested. He’ll get charged, maybe do some time, probably get a fine, and eventually be back in society.

That’s not enough.

Trying to open an emergency exit door mid-flight is attempted murder of every person on that aircraft. Two hundred people sitting in their seats trusting that the plane is going to get them home safely and one maniac decides he wants to open a door and depressurize the cabin.

Here’s my proposed solution.

Land the plane. Cuff him. Put him on another plane. Fly back up to cruising altitude. Let him open the door and see what happens when he’s all alone up there. That’s how we should handle these people. One incident. One consequence. I guarantee the number of mid-flight door attempts drops to zero overnight.

Obviously that’s not going to happen because we live in a civilized society or whatever. But at the very minimum, anyone who attempts to open an emergency exit door mid-flight should receive a lifetime ban from every airline on the planet.

You tried to kill 200 people by opening a door at 35,000 feet. You don’t get to fly ever again. Take the bus. Take the train. Drive. Swim. I don’t care how you get where you’re going but you’re never setting foot on a commercial aircraft again.

Airports and Airplanes Are Already Miserable Enough

Flying is already one of the most stressful experiences in modern life. The security lines. The delays. The gate changes. The middle seats. The guy in front of you reclining into your kneecaps. The baby screaming for three hours straight. The turbulence. The $14 airport sandwich that tastes like cardboard. All of that is already baked into the flying experience and we all accept it because the alternative is driving 18 hours.

Now add the possibility that the person sitting near the emergency exit is going to try to open it mid-flight and you need a former MMA fighter to tackle him before he kills everyone on board. That’s the current state of air travel. We’re all one unhinged passenger away from an emergency landing in Miami while a cage fighter pins someone to the floor of a Frontier Airlines cabin.

Not sure how you solve the crazy-people-on-planes problem. Better screening? Mental health checks at the gate? A mandatory MMA fighter on every flight like an air marshal but with better ground game? I don’t have the answer. What I do know is that it’s getting worse, not better, and the frequency of these incidents is making an already miserable experience significantly more dangerous for everyone.

Shoutout to Josh Longood for handling business. The man was asleep, woke up to chaos, and immediately went into fight mode to protect everyone on that plane. A professional fighter using his skills to restrain a lunatic at 35,000 feet is the most useful thing an MMA career has ever produced outside of the octagon. Hoping his next flight is boring too. He earned it.

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