JetBlue passenger held a razor blade to the neck of woman next to him while she was watching a movie, prosecutors say

• A man held a razor blade against a woman's throat on a JetBlue flight on Tuesday, prosecutors said.
• The man allegedly told the woman to stop her movie whole holding the knife up to her.

A JetBlue passenger held a straight-edge razor against a woman's throat during a flight on Monday, federal prosecutors said.

Merrill Darrell Fackrell, 41, was charged with assault after the flight landed in Salt Lake City, Utah, from New York.

He was also charged with carrying a weapon on a plane, per a press release from the Department of Justice.

The DOJ said Fackrell held the razor to the woman's throat while she was watching a movie during the flight, number B6871. It said the blade was one or two inches long.

Its account said he was sitting next to her, pur his hand in front of the screen and told her to pause her movie.

She took off her headphones and realized he was holding a blade "inches from her skin at her throat/neck area," per the DOJ release.

Officials said the woman's husband was also sitting in the same row, and went to the front of the plane to get help.

The woman then "lunged for the aisle to escape" and the man "tried to stop her by grabbing her shoulder," the press release said.

JetBlue spokesman Derek Dombrowski told Insider that crew on the plane "were made aware of a customer on board that began acting erratically and threatening toward other customers near the end of the flight."

Crewmembers "responded by working to de-escalate the situation" and alerted law enforcement, who met the plane when it landed, he said.

Various federal agencies were investigating how he was able to get the razor on the plane, The New York Times reported.