An unidentified man who attempted to enter the cockpit of a Malaysia Airlines plane was “subdued by several passengers” and detained shortly after takeoff from Melbourne on Wednesday, May 31.

Chief Commissioner Graham Ashton said police at first treated the emergency as a counter-terrorism operation and isolated the plane before overseeing the removal of its passengers, who had been headed to Malaysia when the altercation took place at about 11:40 pm.

The chief commissioner responded to criticism he heard suggesting it took an unreasonable length of time for police to board the plane.

“There was some initial reports that we had received from within the plane about the possibility of their being more than one offender or more than one explosive device. Comments were made by the offender around blowing the plane up,” he said. “So decisions had to be made about what was the safest way to get passengers off the plane, and essentially that did occur and all passengers were removed from the plane.”