CNN Scores Interview With Flight 253 Hero Jasper Schuringa

Jasper Schuringa, a 32-year-old film maker from Amsterdam, is being lauded as the primary hero after he led the charge to subdue would-be attacker Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab on Northwest flight 253 yesterday. As the flight approached Detroit, Abdulmutallab worked to ignite what seems to be an incendiary device meant to light the plane on fire.

Now, CNN has a fascinating interview with Schuringa (embedded below), in which he describes the fire on board and tells how he subdued the suspect, checking him more explosives, and put out the fire with his bare hands.

Fredricka Whitfield had Schuringa live from Miami, though the host seemed a bit unprepared for the talk, unsure of whether the Dutch man merely took a cell phone picture or the suspect or took part in the action. Schuringa sets the record straight, describing all of the action in detail.

“I didn’t hesitate. I just jumped,” Schuringa said, spoken like a true hero. “I pulled the object from him and tried to extinguish the fire,” he said, remembering how he called for water, all the while, grabbing Abdulmutallab in a choke hold and dragging him into the first class compartment toward the cockpit.

The man’s parents, Bob and Ingrid Schuringa, told the Telegraph that they were “extremely proud of him but also really shocked because, in one second, it could have ended up very differently.”

Here’s Schuringa’s CNN interview with Whitfield:

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