A man accused of threatening a baby and charging toward the cockpit of a Northwest Airlines flight on Friday was in federal custody in Honolulu yesterday, awaiting a court appearance.

Santiago Lol Tizol, a 37-year-old Mexican national, was restrained in plastic handcuffs by passengers and crew members aboard Northwest Airlines Flight 91 as the Boeing 757-300 made its way from Los Angeles to Honolulu Friday, officials said.

Tizol will be charged with interfering with flight crew and will make his first court appearance before a federal magistrate tomorrow in U.S. District Court in Honolulu, said Special Agent Brandon Simpson, a spokesman for the FBI in Honolulu.

Conviction could result in a penalty of up to 20 years in prison and a fine.

"The FBI takes these matters very seriously, especially in light of what happened on Sept. 11th," Simpson said. "Whenever there is an incident on an airplane, there is the potential to jeopardize so many people."

Flight 91 departed Los Angeles at 3:21 p.m. Friday with a 177 aboard, among them a young Canadian couple and their sleeping baby daughter in Row 16.

Tizol got up from his seat in the rear of the plane and sat across and one row forward from the Canadian family. He began behaving strangely and ignored crew members who told him to move, the baby's father said Friday night.

The baby's father, who identified himself only by his first name, Jean-Francois, said Tizol brandished a cell phone cord in a way that made the passengers and crew fear it could be used as a weapon, and told a flight crew member that he wanted to kill the baby.

"He looked mentally affected," Jean-Francois said Friday. "His mind was not all there."

For two hours, Tizol sat across from the family, holding the cord and staring at the baby, the father said. Tensions rose.

About 10 minutes from Ho-nolulu, flight attendants asked the family to move to a different area of the plane, Jean-Francois said, and they got up to comply. At that point, Tizol ran toward the cockpit.

Two men seated in business class jumped Tizol, Jean-Francois said. Two other men came to their aid and helped to restrain him.

"They got him on the floor and tied his hands with plastic," the baby's father said.

Many airlines keep plastic restraints aboard for use in emergencies, law enforcement authorities said, but Shawn Brumbaugh, a Northwest Airlines spokeswoman in Indianapolis, would not say whether that was Northwest policy.

"We'll decline to comment on that," she said yesterday.

She also would not discuss the Northwest policy for handling passengers who are behaving in a threatening manner toward other passengers.

Scott Ishikawa, spokesman for the state Department of Transportation, said the crew of Flight 91 informed the tower of the incident, and authorities met the plane at the gate.

FBI agents kept passengers and crew aboard the aircraft for "at least an hour" at the gate while they investigated, he said.

Other aircraft were sent to other gates, and airport operations were not disrupted, he said.

In January 2004, 31-year-old Brandon Gabriel Rines of Tennessee was arrested after trying to enter the cockpit of a Northwest Airlines flight from Detroit to Honolulu. Authorities said they did not believe Rines was involved in terrorism and had him evaluated for mental illness.

Reach Karen Blakeman at kblakeman@honoluluadvertiser.com.