JetBlue flight passengers speak out

Prosecutors have obtained the passenger manifest from the JetBlue flight from which a flight attendant made his now-famous emergency exit as they continued to check his story, track down passengers on the flight and build their case against him, a source familiar with the investigation said Wednesday.

"We have looked at the passenger list and we expect to be interviewing passengers," the source said of the manifest, which was obtained from JetBlue only after a subpoena was issued to the airline.

Sources said prosecutors want to speak with as many witnesses as possible to get a clearer picture of what happened Monday on Flight 1052 from Pittsburgh, Pa., to Kennedy Airport.

Two women from Pittsburgh say a JetBlue flight attendant was rude and instigated the confrontation that he ended by barreling down an  emergency slide at New York’s Kennedy Airport.

Fifty-three year old Marjorie Briskin told The Wall Street Journal for a story Thursday that flight attendant Steven Slater blurted out an expletive during an otherwise normal conversation with a passenger over luggage.

Another woman, 25-year-old Lauren Dominijanni  told the Journal that Slater was immediately rude to her. She says Slater “rolled his eyes at me” when she asked for a wipe to clean up coffee someone spilled on her seat.

Neither woman immediately returned calls from The Associated Press on Thursday.

According to CBS News, police have interviewed 70 percent of the passengers and none of them saw flight attendant Steven Slater get hit in the head with luggage, the incident that allegedly led to his meltdown.

East Meadow native Marissa Liebhaber told the Wall Street Journal that Slater was acting "a little strange" during the flight. At one point, the 20-year-old college student said he bumped into her and didn't apologize. "It wasn't anything totally strange, just a little off," Liebhaber said.

Liebhaber said she didn't witness the outburst that has made Slater a cult hero.

"I didn't even know anything happened until I got home and my mom saw it on the news," Liebhaber said.

Law enforcement officers said talking to passengers is key because they were having difficulty verifying parts of the story that has turned Slater, 38, of Belle Harbor, into an instant celebrity and garnered him tens of thousands of fans on the social networking website Facebook.

Slater allegedly used the plane's intercom to swear at a passenger with whom he'd had an earlier confrontation. He then slid down an emergency chute on the plane and eventually drove home.

Investigators have already interviewed a woman in her 70s who was seated in one of the first nine rows of the plane, where the altercation between Slater and the passenger allegedly occurred.

She told authorities she recalled nothing like the confrontation Slater described, sources said.

Slater is free on $2,500 bail. He was charged Tuesday with reckless endangerment and criminal mischief and trespassing for deploying the emergency slide, which prosecutors said could have injured or killed anyone underneath it when it was engaged.

Slater's attorney said Tuesday after a bail hearing that his client checked that the ground was clear before pulling the lever that activates the chute and no one was endangered.

With a throng of reporters gathered at his home Wednesday, Slater said "nice to see you" as he briskly entered the residence.

With Zeke Miller