A Minneapolis to Newark flight diverted to Chicago O’Hare on Friday after a male passenger wearing “no less than 15 masks” on his face stood up between playing Candy Crush, shouted about being “gang-chased,” “cooked,” and “radiated” by LGBTQ people, and claimed they were “giving him cancer” – and also declared that “Trump is here” and some version of “the plane is going down.”

Sun Country flight 233 departed around 7:13 a.m. local time. The captain diverted to O’Hare “as a precaution in response to a disruptive passenger.” and the plane later continued to Newark.

On the ground, police boarded the aircraft, handcuffed them man, and removed him from the cabin without incident. U.S. Marshals and police interviewed passengers before the flight was permitted to continue to Newark.

According to Sun Country,

The flight landed without incident and the passenger in question was turned over to law enforcement and removed from the aircraft. We appreciate our passengers’ patience during the interruption to their travels, and the flight is continuing on to Newark this morning.

During the pandemic, there was prophylactic benefit to the best quality masks but little benefit to cloth (or paper) masks. Yet these ‘counted’ towards meeting masking requirements. Early on, people were told masks weren’t needed – in some cases a ‘noble lie’ so there wouldn’t be a run on mask supply, in order to preserve them for healthcare workers.

When high quality masks were still largely unavailable, advice shifted to double masking and some offered the reductio ad absurdum that if two masks are good, three masks or even five masks must be better! This passenger either didn’t realize that was a joke, or was still trying to go with the bit, which seems even more likely given the name-dropping of the President and anti-LGBTQ commentary.

(HT: Joe R)