A South Whidbey graduate made headlines on the East Coast last week when he stopped a truck thief from sprinting onto a jet loaded with passengers at JFK International Airport in New York.

Sam Strausser, whose parents live in Clinton, is credited with grabbing and restraining the man until authorities arrived during the April 3 incident. The suspect, identified as 20-year-old Claudio Duran, had stolen a truck and sprinted past a security checkpoint when apprehended by Strausser.

According to a report in the New York Post, Duran stole a truck and ditched it outside Terminal 8 at JFK International Airport. He ran past a TSA checkpoint yelling, “I’m Pablo, I will be famous.” Duran ran a quarter-mile past security before being stopped by Strausser, the Post reported.

The family man and pilot said he did not know there was a security threat until he saw Duran running toward him on the jump bridge, which was connected to the airplane Strausser was about to pilot.

As Duran sprinted close, Strausser said he acted instinctively, first grabbing the man and then tackling him against the wall. Strausser held Duran there until law enforcement arrived nearly 5 minutes later.

“We just grabbed him, put him against the wall and took him back up to the gate,” said Strausser, in a telephone interview with The Record from New York on Tuesday.

Most of the plane’s passengers had already boarded at the time of the incident, though there were about 10 people on the jump bridge with Strausser who were jolted by the experience, he said.

The early-morning flight was scheduled to leave New York for Phoenix, Arizona. Strausser, a 1993 South Whidbey High School graduate, now lives in Arizona with his family.

It was the first time he has ever had to restrain someone in his eight years as a commercial pilot, all with Envoy Air, a subsidiary of American Airlines, he said.

“We try not to do that,” he laughed.