The 17-year-old is facing eight charges while a sheepshearer who stepped in to disarm him is being praised as a hero and has been offered free flights for life.

According to Australian media, one of the men who helped tackle the teenager said he was confident he could stop him because he was from "a sporting family".

Police have charged 17-year-old Ballarat boy with multiple offences after he tried to board a Sydney-bound flight at Avalon Airport.

A teenager in Australia was arrested for allegedly entering a commercial plane armed with a gun. According to reports from outlets citing witnesses at the scene, the weapon was a loaded shotgun. A 17-year-old from the Ballarat region in Australia has been charged with unlawfully taking control of an aircraft,

Passengers and crew held down the 17 year old, who had a shotgun and also claimed to have bombs, until the police arrived, the authorities said.

"I looked up and then within a second I saw the barrel of a shotgun and I thought to myself that ain’t a tool that should be on a plane," Barry Clark, a former boxer, told a local news outlet.

A 17-year-old in Australia faces multiple charges after allegedly boarding a Jetstar flight with a shotgun on Thursday (March 6). The incident occurred at Avalon Airport, near Melbourne, where the teenager was subdued by passengers and crew before police arrived.