A Tucson man on an American Airlines flight was “angry” and “belligerent,” according to one of the passengers who helped restrain him with zip-tie cuffs and duct tape.
Layne Lundeen, 67, was charged Sept. 4 in Maryland on suspicion of second-degree assault and disorderly conduct during a flight from Dallas to Newark, according to court records. After Lundeen allegedly caused a commotion on the Sept. 3 flight, the flight was diverted to Baltimore, where he was arrested.
Richard O’Lenick, the owner of New Jersey gun range Gun for Hire, was returning to New Jersey after a trade show in Reno, Nevada. About two hours into his flight between Dallas and Newark, O’Lenick heard a passenger raising his voice. He sounded angry and agitated, O’Lenick said.
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O’Lenick, who was sitting a couple rows ahead of Lundeen, said he didn’t know what set off the brouhaha. But passengers heard the man using “vulgar” language, including racial slurs, and making homophobic comments, O’Lenick said.
Tucson real-estate broker Layne Lundeen was restrained on a Sept. 3 American Airlines flight after causing a disturbance on the flight. Lundeen, 67, was charged on suspicion of second-degree assault and disorderly conduct. Fellow passenger Richard O'Lenick is at right.
Flight attendants tried for about 10 minutes to quiet Lundeen, O’Lenick said. But the situation escalated, he said.
A woman sitting in front of Lundeen saw the Tucson man put his hands on the throat of his seatmate, who O’Lenick said hadn’t been responding to Lundeen’s outbursts. The woman started hitting Lundeen, who O'Lenick said struck back.
That’s when O’Lenick and his sales manager, Juan Mejia, exited their row to intervene.
O’Lenick squeezed between Lundeen’s knees and the seat, and Mejia, a former police officer, sat next to them. Lundeen bit Mejia and tried to bite O’Lenick as they tried to restrain him.
The bite didn’t break Mejia’s skin, but left an imprint, O’Lenick said.
Eventually, flight attendants gave O’Lenick and Mejia zip-tie restraints to secure Lundeen. O’Lenick said he was hoping that would calm the passenger, but he was “determined” to resist.
As he continued to struggle, O’Lenick said they used duct tape to keep him from trying to bite people.
O’Lenick said he and Mejia tried to calm Lundeen down throughout the encounter.
“But nothing seemed to work,” O’Lenick said. “We just couldn’t seem to get through to him.”
O’Lenick said that for him and Mejia, the incident was “significant” as the 25th anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon approaches. In the chaos of the moment, he said, it wasn’t clear what had prompted the outburst or what would calm the situation.
O'Lenick said he was happy they were able to prevent Lundeen from further hurting himself or others and peacefully hand him off to law enforcement.
“We did everything we could to be aware, and to be as kind as we could to this gentleman,” O’Lenick said. “It was an intense situation, and we were trying to do what we could to de-escalate.”
Their flight was scheduled to land around 11 p.m. But between the detour to Baltimore, and multiple plane cleanings — at some point in the fracas, O’Lenick said Lundeen’s arm was injured and blood got on the seats — they landed around 3 a.m.
“I was like, ‘Thank God we’re home,’” O’Lenick said.
Lundeen, a Tucson real estate broker, was released Sept. 4 and has a trial set for Oct. 19 in Maryland. The FBI told Baltimore news station WMAR-2 that it was conducting interviews and weighing whether to file federal charges in connection with the incident.
Tucson-based Long Realty Co. announced it was parting ways with Lundeen, an independent contractor for the brokerage. He has worked with Long Realty Co. since 2013, according to the Arizona Department of Real Estate. His employment with the group was severed on Sept. 5, department records show.
Lundeen could not be reached for comment.
According to records, Lundeen hasn’t had any disciplinary actions taken against him since he became a licensed real estate broker in the state in 2001.
According to a 2023 article by RISMedia, a real estate trade publication, Lundeen founded the Tanque Verde Trio, a real estate group, in 2014 with Laurie Hassey and Claire Durand. According to the article, the group sold more than 100 homes in the Tanque Verde area in 2022.
Durand declined to comment on Lundeen’s charges. Hassey referred questions to Kevin Kaplan, CEO of Long Companies.
Kaplan said that the roughly 1,000 agents contracting for Long Realty Co. may choose to team up for marketing and sales purposes, but agents working for two different brokerages can't work together. He said Long Realty had not heard from Lundeen since the incident, but the alleged incident did not align with company values.
"This was one individual who was involved in an incident, it is not at all representative of our company or other agents," Kaplan said.
