Nearly an hour into the flight from Phoenix to Minneapolis, the pilot announced that there was  “a security issue in the back,” which required the flight to be diverted and land in Denver, Colorado.

TMZ reported that passengers heard rumblings about a man in the back telling others on the flight he was on cocaine. Soon after, the man reportedly ran to the bathroom in the back of the plane, locking himself in for 10 minutes as flight attendants tried to get him out.

TMZ

✔@TMZ

American Airlines Emergency Landing After Passenger Smokes Joint http://dlvr.it/RDb427

An American Airlines jet made an unscheduled landing Friday after a passenger lit up a joint and got super aggro.

tmz.com

As the plane was about to land, the man exited the lavatory and went back to his seat, where he was described as very jittery, according to TMZ.

Once the plane was safely on the runway, a video shows the man being confronted by the flight attendance staff, as well as police officers and EMT.

That’s when he decided to light up what appeared to be a joint, as staff attempted to grab it, TMZ reported.

The pilot was heard asking the first 13 rows of passengers to exit the plane so they could remove the man in question, who reportedly punched one of the other passengers as they attempted to exit.

The unidentified man was eventually handcuffed by police, who placed him on a stretcher where he was heard screaming, “Take it off, it hurts. I’ll f***ing kill you!” TMZ reported.

The plane departed for Minneapolis two hours later, according to the outlet.

A rep for American Airlines confirmed to Fox News on Saturday that Flight 2408 was diverted due to a “disruptive passenger” and that law enforcement me the aircraft before it re-departed. The spokesperson thanked the flight crew for taking care of the other passengers during the incident.

“A flight attendant- I saw him grab an oxygen tank and he headed to the front of the plane,” Aarti Prasad, a passenger told the New Zealand Herald. “I looked on the screen and it was about eight minutes to landing. They almost made it.”

A call was made around 4:48 a.m. local time to dispatchers at St. Johns Hospital, which sent emergency vehicles and staff to the Boeing B772 immediately, according to a hospital spokesperson.

The sick passenger appeared to be in her 20s and collapsed at the beginning of the descent, according to Newshub.

“Once we landed, the captain came on the speaker himself … and said: ‘Look, we’ve just had a medical event. We can’t get off. Once we get there, the paramedics are meeting the passenger,'” Prasad said.

All passengers were required to sit on the tarmac for approximately 40 minutes while medical officials and police worked to get the passenger off the plane.

Prasad and other passengers were still unaware there had been a death on the flight until they left the aircraft. The flight staff only referred to the incident as a “serious medical emergency”.

“[The flight captain] was very reassuring to everybody,” Prasad said. “He kept talking to us throughout the whole time we were waiting.”

Local police said they were notified about the death prior to arriving on the scene and questioned the people sitting near the woman. The incident is currently being handled by the coroner’s office as a non-suspicious death.

New Zealand, Passenger, Medical Emergency, Prasad, Newshub, Auckland International Airport