A flight from Kansas City to Phoenix diverted when a passenger kept flicking the lighter they’d brought on board – and wouldn’t give it up when a flight attendant tried to confiscate it.
The crew declared an emergency after explaining to the passenger that if he didn’t turn it over they’d have no choice but to get the Airbus on the ground. On arrival, law enforcement removed the passenger from the aircraft and transported him to an area hospital for medical evaluation.
Passengers wondered how the man got a lighter through the security checkpoint, but passengers are permitted to bring a single lighter with them! They just can’t make fire while on board the aircraft.
Here’s the interaction between passenger and flight attendant, who bears an uncanny resemblance to Dr. Drew:
This man was simply asked to give the steward his lighter for the rest of the trip or the entire flight would have to be diverted. He refused.
You can’t have a functioning society with them. pic.twitter.com/eC0dgyvL7m
— David Santa Carla (@TheOnlyDSC) March 22, 2025
Meanwhile, video is going viral over a woman smoking a cigarette at her seat on an Istanbul – Cyprus flight – cabin crew confront her, struggle to retrieve the lighter, and the woman deliberately tries to light a seat on fire. Cabin crew poured water to avert it.
Passengers detain woman after she tries to smoke on plane and burn seat cover with lighter pic.twitter.com/fF7WHT9VYo
— The Sun (@TheSun) March 17, 2025
I recognized this incident and realized that it happened in 2019 but has been recirculating the past several days with several news stories about it today.
The first airline to create a nonsmoking section was United back in 1971. No U.S. airline fully banned smoking worldwide until Delta in 1994. U.S. airlines were still allowed to offer on board smoking up until 2000.
Yet planes still have ashtrays! You’ll usually find them in or near the lavatory, because customers may smoke even though it’s illegal to do so – and they need a place to put out their cigarettes. Without ashtrays they’d be most likely to put out their cigarettes in the lavatory trash.. and light the paper tossed away inside on fire.
This passenger definitely needs medical attention. Regardless, he should be banned from flying.
From the seats and the FA uniform, that’s definitely not a Delta flight. Frontier?
The flight attendant should be able to announce the reason for diversion including the perp’s seat number so some people could go over and argue some sense into the perp.
Article references Delta, video from a Frontier flight.
The posted video says the FA will give the lighter back in PHX and if he doesn’t surrender the lighter “he will divert the aircraft” I think he said Denver. So is that some stock footage or a different event . . . or I am just plane wrong?
All the comfort, and refinement, of a Greyhound Bus in the 80’s…. Same passengers too!
#HardPass, I stopped flying years ago.
DWT: He was a Delta steward. Frontier/Spirit do not have aprons. Besides, it was not a 737.
This was clearly a Frontier flight not Delta… The apron is clearly visible and reads Frontier.
Ban that idiot for life. What is wrong with people and not following directions?
Yo Getreal? You ever heard of a stock photo? They didn’t say it was a picture of the exact airplane, it’s just a stock photo of an Airplane.
Bah! Until the 1990s, you could smoke on many airplanes. Some older aircraft (MD-88s while they were around), still had the ash trays in the arm rests. Not to mention, there were many odd ways of ‘segregating’ the flight into smoking and non-smoking sections, such as left or right side, front or back of each class of service, etc. None of it made any sense—smoke was everywhere. Same with restaurants, and all sorts of places back in the day. It was awful if you weren’t in-to it. Many hanks to the flight attendants unions that fought long and hard to end this vile practice on flights. We are so fortunate to no longer have that cancerous and flammable scourge on commercial airplanes in the USA at least. Though, some countries and airlines still allowed pilots to smoke until the 2010s (Air China!). So, yes, @Mike P, unions, saving the day, yet again.
So the pilot was not physically capable of removing the lighter from the passenger? Was the pilot a 110 lb woman? Or did the pilot fear a lawsuit for doing the right thing? Unless the passenger was carrying a gun or built like Hulk Hogan, I call irresponsibility on the part of the flight crew.
Those seats look aweful thin for Delta… and no seatback IFE.
*Makes mental note to avoid Delta A220s
Gary – you should be careful when choosing which tweets to highlight. The account featured is a virulent racist account, based on the language of the tweet and other tweets from the account. I’ve noticed a few accounts you have highlighted in recent months / years are racist, sexist, anti-Semitic, etc.
IMHO, an all-airline “no-fly” list should be compiled and the policy should be enforced. Flying is tough enough these days without dealing with those yo-yos who feel so entitled and sometimes endanger the entire flight. I would hope that the prospect of having to take a bus for the rest of your life might be a deterrent………
The problem is that tickets are too cheap. Any worthless idiot can fly and they have nothing to lose. There should be a $1500 “deposit” for each seat. FAFO with your deposit.
The Spirit type behavior isn’t going away until punishment is merited out. For this butthead six months in jail, fines, charged the cost of diversion, and put on a permanent No Fly List. The lowlife behavior would end immediately.
@Anthony I came here to say the same thing. Not Gary’s best decision.
Just came to add to the warnings about the racist tweet. Y’all might want to edit this?
Northwest was the first to entirely ban smoking in 1994. Delta always tries to take credit for Northwest accomplishments.
GetReal is right. This was a Frontier flight. The FA was wearing an apron that clearly indicated “Frontier” on the chest.
@James, pilots should not be leaving the cockpit to wrestle a lighter from a passenger. In civil society, the most senior person on the aircraft (captain) should not have to engage in physical activity for something like this. If a passenger acts like a child and is unable to comply, then he and unfortunately all of the other passengers will be inconvenienced. Stupid people like this will hopefully reflect and learn from their actions. Imagine his friends/family who were expecting to see him and they learn that he 1) didn’t make it to the final destination or 2) was extremely delayed getting to his final destination because he kept flicking the lighter on and off, for no reason during the flight, and decided to defy the captain’s request to give up the lighter temporarily. And this was worth all of that trouble? IDIOT.
When I read someone’s comment saying this passenger needs medical attention, I didn’t think it had anything to do with medical attention. But now that I’ve written my response to this article, I’m actually thinking this idiot is really a nut job. Who in their right mind would do this? Did he think the captain was bluffing???? LOL Just wow.
Wish passengers and crew would respond to these situations by re-enacting the famous passenger slapfest from the movie “Airplane!”
https://video.search.yahoo.com/search/video?fr=mcafee&p=airplane+slap+scene&type=E210US565G0#action=view&id=1&vid=1daa70a650cb054df17d0da088ab9147
Who would have thought there would be so many proof readers and fact checkers here? Give it a rest, people.
@Ege: “Northwest was the first to entirely ban smoking in 1994. Delta always tries to take credit for Northwest accomplishments.”
Good comment. After acquiring Northwest, Delta dismantled everything that I liked about Northwest and replaced it with things I disliked with Delta or mediocrity. In a short time I was flying EVA to Asia and other airlines in the USA.
That first comment you quoted from david santa Clara is a racist comment. We can all agree that the actions of that moron who wouldn’t stop flicking his lighter were dumb and selfish. But the comment says “you can’t have a functioning society with them”- it seems he is talking able black people. If you look at his other posts they are filled with race baiting things.
I assume you are not intentionally hyping his racist comment so I’m pointing it out. Maybe there are other comments to quote instead of his.
F-cking Apes
“Would you like the smoking or non-smoking section?”
“If this plane is smoking, I don’t want to get on at all!”
Thank you, George Carlin.
@haolenate It’s definitely not Delta. It’s Frontier. Delta’s A220s look nothing like that (and they do have seat-back IFE.)
White knights here saying “oh no racist twitter!” would let this guy crash the plane instead of insult a precious minority. Who cares his color? He has an open flame and won’t follow the rules, beat this dude into submission.
Muse Air Corp was the first airline to ban smoking, in 1981.