Village News / Southwest News April 2012- By Michelle Leigh Smith
Houston Attorney Hailed as Hero After Quick Action on Flight from LA
Houston Attorney Ben Harwood Rose Stops Hijacking!
Ben Harwood Rose was flying from Los Angeles to Phoenix via US Airways flight 500, and was just stretching after a quick nap. “He woke up to a crazy man pushing the food cart at full speed into a flight attendant, heading towards the pilot’s cockpit,” says his mother, silhouette artist Cindi Rose, a graduate of Bellaire High and the University of Texas. “Ben was at the aisle seat between first class and economy, seat 4D,” Rose says. “He stood up, told the man to “settle down,” and grabbed him. The man had already hit the attendant, and clopped Ben on the back of his head. Ben wrangled the unruly man and, with others, held him until landing.”
“I told him that he can’t do this to America again, there are children and families on board,” says Houston attorney Ben Rose, 27. Later, he discovered the man was suffering from self pity and family turmoil. “The flight attendant gets this sudden look of terror in his face and falls back about seven feet and everything just flies off of the food cart in my direction,” said Rose. “I hear all of these screams. No one knew exactly what was going on.
Everyone’s thinking there’s a terrorist on board the flight.” “I was in the right seat,” Rose
reflects. He is quite humble and acknowledges that there were others on the plane who helped.
“Regardless of that man’s intentions, it’s not right to endanger other lives,” he says. “I was afraid the man would try to get into the cockpit,” Rose said. “The guy threw a punch at me.” Rose took the man down and other passengers helped hold him until landing. Rose said some people called him a hero. “I had no choice,” said the young attorney. He earned both his JD and his MBA with honors simultaneously at the University of Houston in May,
2011. Rose practices estate law at Kornblit & Associates.
Ben held him until the plane landed in Phoenix. The flight crew and pilot thanked him, and when he boarded his plane to Houston, he was hailed as a hero. “I was just one of many,” Rose said Wednesday night. “They asked me what I wanted,” laughs Rose, “I said, just a snack and a drink – no tickets,” he said. US Airways confirmed that Phoenix Police met the plane and arrested the man. Rose said FBI agents interviewed him and the recalcitrant
man.
He has his mother Cindi’s strong spirit. She helped put her husband, Dr. Franklin Rose, through medical school and the couple sent Ben and his sister Erica Rose to the Awty International School and then to Emory University in Atlanta. Ben speaks fluent French and loves history, politics and the study of public policy. Dr. Rose practices medicine at the First Street Surgical Center in Bellaire and was one of the founding physicians who opened the facility in February, 2003.
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