UNDATED (WSAU-Wheeler News) A former airline pilot from Wisconsin who left a cockpit during a flight and screamed about religion and terrorism is now suing his ex-employer for $15-million.
Clayton Osbon, who was raised in Mequon, claims that Jet Blue should never have let him fly from New York to Las Vegas on March 27th of 2012. He said the company should have known that he was suffering a brain seizure from a childhood head injury. The lawsuit said the full effects of the seizure were exposed when he walked through the cockpit in mid-air, and screamed about al-Qaida and Jesus. Passengers and flight attendants restrained Osbon while the plane made an emergency landing in Amarillo Texas.
The New York Daily News said a federal judge in Texas dropped a criminal charge of interfering with a flight crew, after finding Osbon was afflicted with a mental disease. He gave up his wings as part of a conditional release. Jet Blue did not comment on the specifics of the lawsuit, but it praised its crew members for their actions in controlling the wayward pilot. News reports at the time said Osbon had graduated from the University high school of Milwaukee. He lived in Georgia at the time of the incident, but his mother still lived in Mequon — and the family had a home on Washington Island in Door County.