Back at work at his central Auckland restaurant El Faro this afternoon, Mark Ansley told ONE News how he and three fellow passengers resorted to brute force to restrain the man, who was trying to jump out of the flight from Ho Chi Minh City to Sydney on Monday night.

"It's fight or flight isn't it. And I tend to fight," he said.

And despite being compared to an action hero, Mr Ansley reckons he's nothing of the sort.

"I was having quite a good sleep and I just heard screaming, really loud panicked screaming. And I sat up bolt upright, looked down towards the first bulkhead where the exit row is, and there was a guy actually at the exit door trying to get it open," he said.

"A cable tie was handed to me and I couldn't get it round his hands, he was fighting too much. So that's when I decided to try and stun him or knock him out, which didn't work after a couple of goes. But eventually I did stun him enough that he stopped struggling."

Mr Ansley and the other passengers hog tied the man and tied him to the seats.

Mr Ansley said: "He was absolutely mad, I would say he was [in an] amphetamine, psychosis sort of state. He was delusional and he was very, very strong. So he was clearly on something and we were pretty worried.

"I was actually angry because I was trying to get home to my six-year-old son and this guy was affecting that, so I wanted to disarm him as quickly as possible."

Mr Ansley says the man claimed he had been kidnapped all his life and drugged and someone was trying to kill him. Through a Vietnamese passenger, the man told Mr Ansley there was someone in Sydney waiting for him, "and he's going to kill me when I get there because I don't have the stuff on me."

Cabin doors can't be opened at cruise altitude, but the passengers didn't know that.

Police boarded the plane and arrested the man at Sydney Airport. ONE News understands the airline is now taking statements from staff on board the plane.