‘Please keep your clothes on’

A passenger who stripped naked on board a Los Angeles-bound US Airways aircraft forced its diversion to Albuquerque. The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) said he would be arraigned on Thursday and may be ordered to undergo a psychiatric examination.

Keith Anthony Wright, 50, of New York, removed his clothes during the flight with 148 passengers, and refused to put them back on.

Crew on flight 705 were simultaneously dealing with an unrelated medical emergency on board when the authorities ordered the aircraft from Charlotte, North Carolina, to land in Albuquerque.

Marius Langlete, a co-passenger, helped an off-duty Los Angeles police officer on board to restrain the naked man. He also took a photograph of the man with his cell phone and posted the image on the internet.

"We had to physically hold him down on the floor and handcuff his ankles, his wrist," passenger Matt McGinnis told the News 13 television channel.

Passengers were notified of a violent co-passenger, but everyone remained calm, a US Airways spokesperson said.

Wright was arrested, still naked, and taken into custody. The plane continued on to Los Angeles after his arrest, and passengers were treated to a different announcement, including "a reminder to everybody to please keep your clothing on".