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These poor flight attendants!
By Dan O'Reilly — Written on Feb 14, 2022
2021 was a pretty terrible year for unruly passengers. As of the end of the year, there were a record 5,981 reported incidents of unruly passengers, 72% of those incidents were related to mask policies.
But 2022 is already off to a bad start after an American Airlines flight was disrupted by an "unruly" passenger.
A disruptive passenger caused an American Airlines flight from LA to D.C. to land early in Kansas City.
What could possibly cause an aircraft to need to divert from a coast-to-coast flight and land in the middle of the country? A mechanical failure? Inclement weather?
In the case of flight 1775, it was a man who decided to cause utter havoc on the flight, endangering staff and fellow passengers.
Few specifics are known at this time but available eyewitness statements suggest a chaotic scene took place aboard American Airlines flight 1775.
It’s not clear what caused the incident.
The passenger allegedly tried to enter the cockpit.
What started out as the passenger yelling eventually turned into an attempt by the passenger to break into the cockpit of the plane.
Reportedly, a flight attendant hit the passenger in the head with a coffee pot and, as seen in the limited video of the incident available online, several other passengers sprung to subdue the passenger.
This passenger singlehandedly forced a plane to land early in the interest of the safety of everyone on board and even required intervention from other passengers to subdue the unruly passenger.
Few images and videos of the event are available online but the airline has released a statement, saying, “American Airlines flight 1775 with service from Los Angeles (LAX) to Washington, D.C. (DCA) diverted to Kansas City (MCI) due to an unruly passenger… The flight landed safely at MCI at 2:28 p.m. local time, and law enforcement was requested to meet the flight on arrival.”
The airline also commented on the actions of the crew during the event, saying, “We're grateful to our crew members, who are consistently dedicated to the safety and care of our customers and who handled the circumstances with the utmost skill and professionalism.”
The passenger was taken into FBI custody.
The incident will be under the FBI's jurisdiction now and they arrested the passenger upon landing in Kansas.
"The flight was diverted due to an unruly passenger interfering with the flight crew," the FBI's statement said. "The individual has been taken into custody. No further information is available at this time."
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Dan O'Reilly is a writer who covers news, politics, and social justice. Follow him on Twitter.