Another screwy airline incident! This time, it appears that a crazed passenger went berserk and among other things threatened a baby. Finally, passengers were forced to take matters into their own hands:

About 10 minutes before Flight 91 was preparing to touch down last night in Honolulu, the unidentified 37-year-old Mexican national burst toward the cockpit of the plane and was subdued by four people in the business-class section, according to passengers and the parents of the baby girl, who live in Montreal, Canada.

The man was put in plastic "tough cuff" restraints aboard the plane and detained for the remainder of the flight, said Scott Ishikawa, state Department of Transportation spokesman.

"He was threatening to harm somebody else's infant," Ishikawa said. "It took several people to subdue him. We don't have a reason why he allegedly wanted to harm the infant."

FBI agents had the man in custody last night, Ishikawa said. The FBI did not return telephone calls seeking comment.

The Boeing 757-300 left Los Angeles at 3:21 p.m. with 177 passengers and a crew of two pilots and five flight attendants.

"During the course of the flight, one of the passengers was exhibiting behavior of concern," Northwest spokesman Kurt Ebenhock said. "Attendants and one passenger helped manage the situation."

the man even gestured threats toward a baby with a cell phone cord, and couldn't sit still. But thanks to one father's planning, a group of passengers are heroes to nearly 200 people on the flight.

"We got the word around first class that if he makes a move for the cockpit door, he's going down," said passenger Mike Deckard. "And that's just what happened. He made a move for the cockpit door and we were on top of him."

He and six others bound the suspect's hands and feet with a belt and cords from an on-board restraint pack.

"I think he's a hero," says Michael Deckard, age 13, about his dad. "I think he did a good job. Obviously he's watching a little bit of football with that tackle. Go dad!"

"If anybody's wants to try something, remember - there are 200 other people on the aircraft who are gonna stop you," Mike Deckard said.

The suspect is a 37-year-old Mexican national. He bit one man who helped tackle him -- a Honolulu Marathon runner who had to get a tetanus shot when they landed.

Many airlines keep plastic restraints aboard for use in emergencies, law enforcement authorities said, but Shawn Brumbaugh, a Northwest Airlines spokeswoman in Indianapolis, would not say whether that was Northwest policy.

"We'll decline to comment on that," she said yesterday.

She also would not discuss the Northwest policy for handling passengers who are behaving in a threatening manner toward other passengers.

It doesn't look like the airline did much of anything.

Well, at least they didn't stop the passengers from tackling this nut. (And I guess the heroic passengers should be grateful that they weren't arrested for "taking the law into their own hands.")

Am I alone in suspecting that the bureaucrats who want to run things like big airlines just don't like the idea of people defending each other and helping themselves?