MELBOURNE, Australia (Seven Network/CNN) - Terrified passengers described the moment a man, claiming to have a bomb, was tackled to the ground and restrained on Thursday.
The drama unfolded on a Malaysia Airlines flight from Melbourne to Kuala Lumpur.
Many of those on board are furious it took more than an hour for police to enter the plane after it had landed back at the airport.
The state's most elite police officers stormed Malaysia Airlines Flight NH 128 as the alleged attacker, held down by passengers, was taken into custody.
The Kuala Lumpur-based plane was 10 minutes into its flight when pilots issued a mayday call about a crazed passenger on board.
"He was claiming to have an explosive device. Tried to enter the cockpit. Has been overpowered by passengers. However, we'd like to land and have the device checked out," one of the pilots was heard saying in an audio recording.
"The two hostesses just immediately in front of me engaged in an argument with someone I couldn't see just behind the servery area," one passenger said.
"A guy ran up the side, saying 'I got a bomb,' and people were screaming," another passenger said.
"The hostesses started yelling out, 'Get him. Get him. Help me! Help me!'" a third passenger said.
And they did. A group of passengers chased him down the aisle to the back of the plane, using a spare seat belt and cables to hog-tie him.
One passenger described the apprehension of the suspect: "It was weird. All of a sudden, there were five people on the same wavelength, bang, and he got down."
"There were some pretty big, burly guys, and yeah. They weren't letting him getting away with saying something like that," another passenger said.
Relief set in as the Airbus returned to Melbourne airport after the harrowing 30-minute ordeal.
"It was gut-wrenching, raw emotion, genuine threat. Absolutely, you cannot but think it was a genuine threat," a passenger said.
But relief quickly turned to frustration. Passengers were stranded on the tarmac for more than an hour.
"So we were sitting there. And this guy was pinned down with a potential bomb on board. And we sat there for an hour and 10 minutes. Ridiculous," a passenger said.
"We could see them all outside. But they weren't coming on the plane, and we didn't know why," another passenger said.
Police defended the wait, and said focused on making sure there were no other devices on board. Officials were also quick to rule out any links to terrorism. The object was not an explosive.
Authorities said the device looked "like it's just a slightly larger version of an iPhone that was set up with a Bluetooth-type speakers."
The suspect, a 25-year-old man on a student visa from Sri Lanka, had only the previous day been released from a psychiatric facility, where he was a voluntary patient.
He is now in custody thanks to some quick-thinking passengers.
Copyright 2017 Seven Network via CNN. All rights reserved.
