American Airlines Passengers Brawled On Final Approach To Miami — “She Had Her Elbow In Me The Whole Entire Time”

A fight on an American Airlines flight to Miami got out of control as the plane was about to land: “She had her elbow in me the whole entire time.”

You can hear a flight attendant saying they are “about to land” and that if people do not sit down they will have to keep “going around in circles.” The planeload of passengers just wants to get on the ground, but not everyone is willing to sit.

It appears that an argument over personal space in cramped seats – as one passenger encroached over the armrest of the other – escalated beyond the usual passive aggressiveness that two adversaries might engage in and spilled over into an all out aluminum alloy, carbon-fiber composite, and titanium cage match.

In video taken by another passenger you can heaer the woman saying some version of “Are you going to make me sit down?” The crew are trying to shut it down, while a customer in the gray cap steps in and acts as a separator. She surges forward anyway, and her adversary goes hands-on in response.

A commenter on the clip reports working work the adjacent gate when the plane finally arrived, and reports that police were waiting there to take the woman into custody.

Woman: “Are you gonna make me sit down? Are you gonna make me sit down? Are you gonna make me sit down? Are you gonna make me sit down? Now, bitch, you come here.”

Other passenger: “I don’t care. She had her elbow in me the whole entire time. As soon as I move my arm, she gonna elbow [or hit] me. No, bitch, I’m gonna fuck you up.”

Flight attendant: “We’re about to land, and if everybody doesn’t sit down, we’re gonna have to keep going around in circles and circles and circles, and people are going to miss their connections. Everybody, please sit down. Can we sit down later, please? Can we let the 172 people that want to go home, go home? Can we go home now? Hey! Hey! Hey! Hey!”

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There’s the usual “Lemme take a wild guess… Spirit?” from the internet, when of course this is American Airlines. And American, which has (1) more flights and more passengers than others and (2) a hub in Miami, actually seems to have more of these incidents than Spirit or Frontier, even if they have fewer of them per capita.

I think I’m going to steal one line I read though: “This is group 8 behavior.”

This incident bears such a striking resemblance to last summer’s American Airlines Nassau – Miami onboard fight that I had to do a double take to make sure this really was a new incident. But of course it is because it was.. an American Airlines flight to Miami.

Here’s another Miami flight where drunk passengers were removed for threatening an American Airlines flight attendant and one where a Miami passenger attached an American Airlines gate agent who demanded she gate check her bag.