(Photo: Joe Raedle/Getty Images)

An allegedly drunk man from Utah has been arrested and charged for carrying and using a straight edged razor blade to threaten a woman during a JetBlue flight. The incident occurred earlier this week on a flight from John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York to Salt Lake City International Airport in Utah.

The 41-year-old, Merrill Darrell Fackrell Fackrell was seated in a window seat next to a wife and husband. The wife, who wished to remain anonymous, was in the middle seat next to Fackrell. He somehow managed to get a razor blade onto the airplane.

The criminal complaint states that Fackrell had been talking with the wife while the husband was watching a movie. During this time Fackrell consumed “several alcoholic beverages.” 

At some point during the flight, after the wife had put on her headphones and was watching a movie, Fackrell “placed his hand in front of the woman’s screen and told her to pause her movie.” Then, the woman removed her headphones and realized Fackrell appeared to be holding what she thought was a knife. Fackrell had the blade “inches from her skin at her throat/neck area.”

Fackrell proceeded to stand up and begin yelling: “She’s going to be OK,” along with: “No one needs to worry,” according to information obtained by KSL.com.

The wife’s husband went to get help, not realizing that Fackrell was threatening his wife with a weapon.

“He was going to get help because he knew something was really off with Fackrell and had had enough,” the woman said to KSL.com. “[My husband] was only a few steps ahead of me when I lunged into the aisle. He didn’t knowingly leave me to handle a man with a weapon all by myself.”

According to police, the passenger sitting across the aisle managed to get the weapon away from Fackrell. The weapon was then given to a crew member for safekeeping. 

The United States Attorney’s Office has filed charges against Fackrell for Carrying a Weapon on an Aircraft and Assault with a Dangerous Weapon in the Special Aircraft Jurisdiction of the United States.

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