Man Shot After Airliner Bomb Claim

Wife Says Distraught Passenger Had Bipolar Disorder; No Bomb Found

(CBS/AP)  An agitated passenger who claimed to have a bomb in his backpack was shot and killed by a federal air marshal Wednesday after he bolted frantically from a jetliner that was boarding for takeoff, officials said. No bomb was found.

It was the first time since the Sept. 11 attacks that an air marshal had shot at anyone, Homeland Security Department spokesman Brian Doyle said. Another federal official said there was no apparent link to terrorism.

Marshals – who often fly in teams – regularly train with weapons in aircraft mockups to learn how to shoot safely in very confined and congested spaces, reports CBS News correspondent Bob Orr.

"All of a sudden he ran through the aisle, waving his arms," passenger Mary Gardner said on CBS News' The Early Show.

"Shortly after the gentleman went through first class and out the door, his wife returned back toward coach, apologizing, that her husband was sick and she had to collect her bags," added passenger Michael Beshears, who describes the passenger's wife as "borderline hysterical."

"Shortly after the shots rang out she was moving back toward — I think she was attempting to get to the jetway," Beshears told co-anchor Hannah Storm. "And I have to commend the flight attendant for stopping her there in our row."

The passenger, identified as Rigoberto Alpizar, indicated there was a bomb in his bag and was confronted by air marshals but ran off the aircraft, Doyle said. The marshals went after him and ordered him to get down on the ground, but he did not comply and was shot when he apparently reached into the bag, Doyle said.

"[Mrs. Alpizar] said, 'my husband is bipolar he didn't take his medicine,'" Gardner said.

There was no alternative other than to shoot Alpizar, Air Marshals Service spokesman Dave Adams said.

"Mr. Alpizar was told to drop his bag. He kept approaching the federal air marshals ... He reached to the bag, started approaching the federal air marshals again," Adams told Early Show co-anchor René Syler. "They had to stop the threat. The only thing was to be able to immediately stop it for their safety and the safety of passengers in the terminal."

"They did exactly what they were trained to do," he added.

"We can't take chances anymore," aviation consultant Michael Boyd told CBS News.

Alpizar, a 44-year-old U.S. citizen, was killed on a jetway outside the American Airlines 757 jet, which was parked at a gate at Miami International Airport. Alpizar had arrived earlier in the day from Quito, Ecuador, and Flight 924 was going to Orlando, near his home in Maitland.

Orr reports that Alpizar has no background record and is not connected to any terrorist group.

Relatives said Alpizar and his wife had been on a working vacation in Peru. A neighbor who said he had been asked to watch the couple's home described the vacation as a missionary trip.