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But Clarke, a 6'7" 210-pound former college basketball player at Clemson, felt he needed to try to do something. He had no idea if terrorists were hijacking the plane or if weapons were involved. He said to Gifford, "I've got to go."

By the time Clarke opened the cockpit door, the struggle inside was perhaps 20 to 30 seconds old. A 27-year-old Kenyan named Paul Kefa Mukonyi, a graduate student at a university in Lyons, France, later diagnosed with acute paranoia, had burst into the cockpit trying to seize control of the plane. As he fought with Captain William Hagan, 53, and first officer Phil Watson, 38, the autopilot became disengaged, causing two steep dives.

The Kenyan man had bitten Hagan on his ear and finger; the captain had stuck his finger in the intruder's eye. A third pilot, Richard Webb, 35, had entered the life-or-death melée just a few seconds before Clarke arrived.

The scene before Clarke was chaos. With his arms around Watson, Mukonyi, dressed in a hooded, slick-finish, black winter coat, was flailing and grabbing for the controls. Webb was bearhugging the man around his waist. Hagan was fighting off the man while trying to bring the plane out of its nearly lethal dive. (British Airways later denied that a crash was imminent. However, according to Daily Nation, a Nairobi newspaper, at least one passenger says the captain told him that in four or five more seconds the plane would have flipped upside down, preventing the pilots from ever regaining control.)

Clarke immediately grabbed Mukonyi around his neck and shoulders, trying to wrestle him down. Clarke's strength was just what was needed. With the pilots' help, the Kenyan was pulled to the floor, facing the control panel with his feet pointing to the door.

Once Clarke entered the cockpit, he estimates it took six to eight seconds to restrain the Kenyan. By this time, Gifford had gotten up and was at the cockpit door. In what seemed to be a sea of people, Gifford saw a tennis shoe and a leg. He grabbed it and started pulling.

Mukonyi was pulled out of the cockpit where the two men, another passenger, and the crew fastened his hands and legs with nylon straps. He was then handcuffed. As this happened, he was telling those holding him, in English, "If you let me up, I will show you to the others with me." There were no others, but no one knew for sure then, making the remainder of the flight extremely tense, says Clarke.

The frightened and desperate man also handed Clarke three pages of paper on which he had penciled a note in French. Clarke doesn't know what the note said, nor have subsequent reports indicated its message. The Kenyan had been acting strangely at the London airport before boarding the plane and continuously mumbled incoherently to himself while pacing the British Airways flight, according to news reports.

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