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About two hours out of Paris, with the plane cruising over the Atlantic at 35,000 ft., passengers began to report smelling smoke. Jones was back in the galley cleaning up after the meal service, and Moutardier, who was picking up trays, cruised the aisles looking for the source of the burning smell. She discovered Reid, seated alone by a window, trying to light a match. She sternly warned him that smoking was not allowed. He promised to stop, then began picking his teeth with the blackened matchstick. A few minutes later, she saw him bend over in his seat. "I thought, He's smoking," Moutardier recalls. "It got me mad. I was talking to him, saying, 'Excuse me,' but he just ignored me. I leaned in and said, 'What are you doing?'" As she pulled at him, he turned, giving her a glimpse of what he was hiding. What she saw terrified her. "He's got the shoe off, between his legs. All I see is the wiring and the match. The match was lit," she says. Twice she grabbed him, twice he pushed her away, the second time so hard she fell against an armrest across the aisle. I'm going to die, she thought.
Jones had seen and heard none of this--when Moutardier came running back yelling, "Get him! Go!" Moutardier was so flustered, she said nothing about the shoe and the match. Jones rushed out and quickly realized what was going on. Reid's back was turned away from the aisle, but "you could just tell he was very intent on doing something. I didn't talk to him or ask him what he was doing. I just knew it in my mind," she says. "I yelled, 'Stop it!' and grabbed him around the upper body. I tried to pull him up. And that's when he bit me." She screamed, and passengers started crawling over seats to restrain him. But his teeth would not let go. "I couldn't get my hand out of his mouth. I thought he was going to rip my hand apart it hurt so bad. It was surreal," she says. "I saw all these men coming ... and I knew I had to get out of the way, but he still had my hand in his mouth." Finally, when he let go, she calmly and professionally--no doubt in shock--put up the tray table next to him. Then she ran for the fire extinguisher.
Fearing the match would somehow ignite, Moutardier rushed back and got passengers to pass bottles of Evian to pour over Reid. Other crew members arrived on the scene. They brought plastic cuffs for Reid's hands, a seat-belt extension to tie up his feet. Passengers passed belts, headphone cords, anything they could find. (When the rerouted plane landed in Boston, Reid was so trussed up that the FBI had to cut him out of his seat.) A doctor on board was drafted to give him Valium, kept in the flight kit.
Even after Reid was restrained and sedated, he continued to taunt the crew. Moutardier says that whenever he heard the voice of a crew member, he would open his eyes and glare. When a flight attendant offered him water, he bared his teeth. "At one point, he wanted to get loose; he was rocking and praying. I got real scared," says Moutardier. No one knew if Reid had accomplices on board. There were no clear procedures to guide the crew of 12, so they improvised. They barred anyone from standing up without permission for the remaining three hours of the flight. Passengers who asked to go to the bathroom were searched and their pockets emptied. The crew checked the passports of male passengers. A flight attendant created a barrier in front of the cockpit and stood guard.