JetBlue announced Wednesday that it is suspending the captain whose bizarre behavior prompted his fellow co-pilot to lock him out of the cockpit on a flight from New York to Las Vegas. 

Clayton Osbon, 49,  has been a pilot at JetBlue since 2000, the airline's first year of flying. The company said a "medical situation" occurred onboard the plane on Tuesday but wouldn't elaborate.

Passengers said the pilot was yelling and acting unruly in the cabin after he was locked out of the cockpit. A group of passengers tackled the captain and restrained him until the plane landed in Amarillo, Texas.

JetBlue spokeswoman Allison Steinberg said Wednesday that Osbon was taken off active duty pending review of the incident. 

Two passengers aboard JetBlue Flight 191 recounted Wednesday the dramatic and bizarre situation of the plane's captain leaving the cockpit, acting erratically and eventually being subdued. JetBlue's CEO, meanwhile, said the captain was a "consummate professional."

The captain "became increasingly agitated," passenger Tony Antolino told TODAY's Ann Curry, adding that several passengers grabbed the pilot, "tackled him to the ground" and sat on him.

Osbon, since charged with interfering with a flight crew and now getting medical care, left the cockpit, tried to enter an occupied lavatory and then became increasingly agitated when he couldn't get back into the cockpit.

"The first thing I saw was the captain running down the aisle," passenger Laurie Dhue said on TODAY, adding he was "banging on the door, saying 'Let me in! Let me in!' " Dhue credited the "brave people on board" for handling the situation, saying it was "literally like a scene from a movie."

JetBlue CEO Dave Barger, also appearing on TODAY, told host Matt Lauer that he knew the captain personally and said there were no signs that pointed to the in-flight meltdown.

"It was a true team effort at 35,000 feet yesterday," Barger said of the response by passengers and crew.

Flight 191 was scheduled from John F. Kennedy Airport to Las Vegas, but was diverted to Amarillo, Texas.

On Tuesday, Antolino told NBC New York the captain began yelling about an unspecified threat linked to Iran, Iraq and Afghanistan. "They're going to take us down, they're taking us down, they're going to take us down. Say the Lord's prayer, say the Lord's prayer," the captain screamed, according to Antolino.

John Cox, an aviation safety consultant and former airline pilot, told the Associated Press that incidents in which pilots become mentally incapacitated during a flight are "pretty rare." He said he could only recall two or three other examples in the more than 40 years he has been following commercial aviation.

Airlines and the FAA strongly encourage pilots to assert themselves if they think safety is being jeopardized, even if it means contradicting a captain's orders, Cox said. Aviation safety experts have studied several cases where first officers deferred to more experienced captains with tragic results.

In-flight outbursts by airline crewmembers are rare, but they do happen.

Earlier this month, an American Airlines flight attendant was taken off a plane for rambling about 9/11 and her fears that the plane would crash. "I'm not responsible for this plane crashing," the crew member said over the public-address system, according to passengers. Passengers wrestled the flight attendant into a seat while the plane was grounded at Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport; the flight attendant was hospitalized.

In 2008, an Air Canada co-pilot was forcibly removed from a Toronto-to-London flight, restrained and sedated after having a mental breakdown on a flight.

The FAA is likely to review the unidentified captain's medical certificate — essentially a seal of approval that the pilot is healthy. All pilots working for scheduled airlines must have a first-class medical certificate. The certificates must be renewed every six months to a year, depending on the pilot's age. To receive the certificate, the pilot must receive a physical examination by an FAA-designated medical examiner that includes questions about pilot's psychological condition. Pilots are required to disclose all physical and psychological conditions and medications.

Passenger Charlie Restivo thought it was clear the pilot suffered a medical episode. "I don't think when he got up this morning that that's what he was intending to do," Restivo told the AP. "Unfortunately, I just think it happened to him."

The Associated Press and NBC New York contributed to this report.

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A JetBlue flight from John F. Kennedy Airport to Las Vegas was diverted after the pilot began behaving erratically, pounding on the door of the cockpit and yelling about threats from Iran, Iraq and Afghanistan, authorities and passengers said.

Flight 191 left New York City at about 7:30 a.m. Tuesday with 135 passengers on board, and at about 10 a.m. the plane was diverted to Amarillo, Texas.

Read the original report on NBCNewYork.com.

JetBlue said in a statement that the plane was diverted "for a medical situation involving the captain."

Tony Antolino, a 40-year-old executive for a security firm, said the captain walked to the back of the plane, that he seemed disoriented and agitated, then began yelling about an unspecified threat linked to Iran, Iraq and Afghanistan.

"They're going to take us down, they're taking us down, they're going to take us down. Say the Lord's prayer, say the Lord's prayer," the captain screamed, according to Antolino.

"He was irate," said passenger Josh Redick. "He was spouting off about Afghanistan and souls and al-Qaida."

The Federal Aviation Administration said the co-pilot became concerned about the captain's "erratic behavior during the flight" and locked the cockpit door while the pilot was outside.

Antolino, who said he sat in the 10th row, said he and three others tackled the captain as he ran for the cockpit door, pinned him and held him down while the plane landed.

"That's how we landed," he said. "There were four of us on top of him. ... Everybody else kind of took a seat and that's how we landed."

He was taken to a medical facility after the plane landed. 

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Ruth Sherman, an 88-year-old frequent flier with JetBlue, has flown from New York to Florida many times, but never has she been taken aside and asked to pull her pants down and show her colostomy bag, as she asserts occurred at Kennedy Airport recently.

It makes Sherman the second elderly woman in recent days to claim that TSA agents forced her to expose herself during a pre-flight security screening. Lenore Zimmerman, a Long Beach, N.Y., resident, says she was required by TSA security screeners to take off her pants as part of a search on Nov. 29. That search likewise took place at the JetBlue terminal at Kennedy.

Sherman, who was returning home Nov. 28 after celebrating Thanksgiving with family in New York, said her initial X-ray screening apparently showed a bulge from her colostomy bag on the side of her body. Screeners then pulled her aside and gave her a pat-down with their hands, including touching her on her legs and her torso near her breasts and around her arms, she said.

That triggered the screeners to order yet another level of search.

“It was awful,” Sherman told msnbc.com from her home in Sunrise, Fla. “They asked me to come into another room. I said ‘Don’t touch me — you have dirty hands.’ I had on plain sweatpants and a top. They made me pull my sweatpants down with my underwear. They invaded my privacy.

“I was so taken aback. I’m on medication, and I didn’t want to get high blood pressure. It was a horrible situation.”

"TSA is currently reviewing recent allegations of passengers who flew out of JFK, " spokesperson Greg Soule said in a statement. "Our preliminary review of each of these claims indicates all screening procedures were followed."

One thing is known, Soule told msnbc.com earlier Monday: “Is removal of underwear proper for (someone with) a colostomy bag? The answer is no.”

JetBlue had little to say. “We’re cooperating with the TSA and ask that you refer to them for additional information,” said Allison Steinberg, a spokeswoman for the airline.

Sherman says it just befuddles her that anyone could mistake her for a terrorist threat. “I said to (the TSA agent), ‘Why are you doing this? I don’t have a bomb here. I’m not blowing myself up.’ ”

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Elaine Porterfield is an msnbc.com contributor.

An off-duty New York City police officer subdued and handcuffed an intoxicated passenger accused of attacking a flight attendant Sunday during a scuffle aboard a JetBlue plane, NBC New York reports.

Officer Anibal Mercado intervened after Antonio Ynoa of Brooklyn punched a flight attendant in the face early Sunday on JetBlue Flight 832 from the Dominican Republic to John F. Kennedy International Airport, the NYPD said.

About a half hour before the plane was scheduled to land at about 12:30 a.m., the flight attendant approached Ynoa and told him to stop drinking duty-free alcohol, police said. Ynoa became angry and hit the attendant, police said.

Mercado, a patrol cop in the Bronx, intervened and the flight landed safely with no further incidents.

The officer told reporters that he felt compelled to help.

"Everybody was very alarmed," Mercado said. "I could see the fear in the passengers' faces."

Mercado told Ynoa that he was a police officer, then wrestled him to the ground and restrained him with a pair of plastic handcuffs stored on the aircraft, police said.

"He struck me a few times in the face as I was trying to restrain him," said Mercado, who is an 18-year veteran of the police force. "He was still yelling profanities. I was just telling him to calm down."

A JetBlue spokesman said the plane landed safely. When the flight landed, Ynoa was escorted off the plane by the FBI. The FBI says Ynoa, 22, will be arraigned Monday in federal court in Brooklyn on charges of assault and interference with a flight crew.

The name of his lawyer was not immediately known.

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This story originally appeared on NBC New York. Information from the Associated Press was included in this report.