Southwest Airlines Flight 1763
air rage incident resulting in death of disruptive passenger
Southwest Airlines Flight 1763 was a scheduled passenger flight, operated by Southwest Airlines, from McCarran International Airport, in Paradise, Nevada, to Salt Lake City International Airport, in Salt Lake City, Utah. On August 11, 2000, Jonathan Burton, a Las Vegas resident, stormed the cockpit door of the Boeing 737 while in flight, in an apparent case of air rage. The 19-year-old was subdued by six to eight other passengers with such force that he died of asphyxiation. The death was initially believed to have been a heart attack.
Incident
Burton charged the cockpit door, kicking it open and sticking his head in. The pilot and co-pilot pushed him out, and six to eight passengers then restrained him, some holding him down with their feet on his neck, causing him to suffocate.
There were conflicting reports of Burton's air rage and the events that occurred during the flight. CBS News reported the conclusion of the U.S. Attorney's office that criminal charges would not be filed because the death was not intended. Time published an article by Timothy Roche entitled "Homicide in the Sky" in which it described the ruckus Burton initially created. He was briefly subdued, but then struck an off-duty officer who had been keeping him in his seat, and began running up and down the aisle of the plane.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Southwest Airlines Flight 1763” is air rage incident resulting in death of disruptive passenger. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Southwest, Airlines and Flight, not as a finished interpretation.
Why this record matters
The phrase “air rage incident resulting in death of disruptive passenger” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.
Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated May 3, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q7571208. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1763 and 2000.
The absence of detail may reflect summary conventions rather than a lack of surviving documentation. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.
- Subject orientation
- Search vocabulary
- Locating named sources
The closest primary source, responsible institution and strongest cited specialist reference.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “Southwest Airlines Flight 1763”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow Southwest Airlines Flight 1763 primary sources, Southwest Airlines Flight 1763 archive and Southwest research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
- Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Southwest Airlines Flight 1763”?
- Which institution is responsible for the underlying evidence?
- Which cited source is closest to the event, object or claim?
Search terms from this dossier
This entry incorporates text from “Southwest Airlines Flight 1763” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.