San Jose Police Department’s Officer Manny Vasquez, left, and Sergeant Luan Nguyen

Two vacationing off-duty San Jose police officers, Luan Nguyen and Manny Vasquez, were on an Eva Air flight from Taipei to San Francisco, when the captain came on the intercom, “I have a situation on board. If there are any law enforcement officers on board, please identify yourselves to a flight attendant.”

 The unarmed officers went to give their assistance and found a mentally ill passenger where they had to use force, straps, seat belts, and belts to restrain the man.

The passenger had attacked a sleeping women, choking her until others were able to get him off her. The flight attendants cleared the last few rows, which left the unstable man by himself and also near the galley — which had knives among other items that could be used as a weapon.

When the officers approached the man he started fighting violently, kicking everything around him, including the cabin window. The officers were able to take control of the man and worked with passengers restraining him for the remainder of the 4.5 hours to San Francisco. After landing the man was placed into police custody and the officers received a round of applause.

Although the men didn’t have any of their standard equipment an officer on the ground would have, they did have their training and that was all they needed to resolve a messy and potentially deadly situation.