The man who caused 252 United Airlines passengers to get stuck in Auckland for a day after his racist, homophobic rant on United’s New Year’s Day flight UA870 from Sydney to San Francisco led to a diversion will not face charges.
Here’s the man talking into his phone upon landing in Auckland, “Tell my dad to get his law firm ready because United Airlines just diverted the […] plane because I complained to some fat […] who got in my […] face.” (F expletives deleted.)
Apparently he was sitting between two passengers of South Asian descent and he… didn’t like that.
[T]he man became incensed that the two passengers on either side of him began talking over him. According to one passenger seated a few rows away, “The rant progressed from cursing Indians to Asians to Muslims to non-whites in general and calling flight crew faggots and fatasses. He was subdued after the pilot announced the diversion to Auckland.”
…”If you guys treat people right on these things, you see two last names the same don’t put someone else in the middle of them.”
The man was belligerent, it seems from about 40 minutes into the flight and it continued for hours while he “scribbl[ed] in a dog-eared copy of Catcher in the Rye.”
Here’s the man calling a flight attendant a ‘fat ass’ and declaring that it would be really cool for the plane to divert.
The pilot decided to divert more than four hours into the flight over an hour North of Auckland.
The flight diverted when it was near Tonga and reportedly had been denied permission to divert to American Samoa or Fiji.
Here’s the man being removed from the aircraft once it did.
Whether he was dealing with personal issues, drugs or alcohol, or being a jerk it clearly wasn’t the fault of United Airlines or fellow passengers. It’s a hard case that he shouldn’t somehow bear whatever responsibility that he can for the incident in my opinion.
UAL should allow him to find another airline to fly home on ( – :
Welcome to New Zealand – where you can get away with a couple of years for murder if you play your cards right 🙂
People should only “face charges” when they commit a crime. Language that is offensive but poses no actual threat is not a crime on an American aircraft in international airspace, so what “crime” should he have been charged with?
United Airlines, not this passenger, is at fault for inconveniencing an entire planeload of passengers because they didn’t like this guy’s language.
Planes should never be diverted unless a passenger poses a SECURITY risk, not a courtesy risk. (I imagine the hundreds of people on that plane did not appreciated being diverted because a passenger, who apparently posed no risk to flight safety, hurt people’s feelings.)
United owed a duty to its other passengers to get them to their destination on time as long as it could be done safely, and there seems no reason to believe that anyone’s safety was threatened in any way.
Perhaps the jerk could face civil lawsuits or a class action from the 251 other passengers and United. I wouldn’t be surprised to see these rants becoming a trend.
Inconveniencing passengers for non-safety issues seems to be a problem with United:
http://abcnews.go.com/Travel/movie-complaint-leads-flight-diversion/story?id=18887461
In much of the world, they don’t usually put people in jail for non-violent offenses. This guy certainly deserves some punishment but there is a reason the USA has 25% of the worlds prison population. I don’t know what the right punishment is but nothing is not it. Guy at least needs to be forced into mental health treatment or if he is not mentally ill feel some consequences for his action.
On a side note, it does sound like the people he was sitting between were pretty rude. I sometimes sit aisle and window with my wife and we never talk over person in the middle seat if we get stuck with someone in that seat or we give up the window and sit together. Yelling over a middle seat passenger is very rude and annoying. 100% does not justify a racist rant and certainly doesn’t support being offensive or aggressive to cabin crew who did nothing wrong. However, I don’t think that the two passengers on either side of this gentleman followed standard airplane decorum or worked to deescalate the situation
“Outrageous” is a bit premature. No doubt there’s more to the story.
Had this plane landed in the US he would be prosecuted if United asserted that he interfered.with the flight crew’s instructions. It is US law that passengers must comply with the instruction of the crew.
@Dan – would you have felt safe sitting next to this man if he were ranting at you and calling you foul names? What do you think the crew should have done — given him an aisle seat or upgraded him to make him happy and stop his rant?
Maybe if we all scream and verbally attack those around us we’ll get anything we want to shut us up….what a great and civil society we’ll have.
I love that his first instinct is to run to daddy.
I doubt if any charges would stand. Everybody knows that one person’s free speech trumps any consideration of the other 231 passengers. It is ironic that what sets him off was the other people talking (along with some racism).
The guy was mean and went to the bathroom for 20 minutes! I wonder why they didn’t call for an F16 escort. Does NZ have any of those? Surly they could have scrambled some from one of the pacific bases?
Amazing. If it were a Muslim speaking in Arabic, then all those advocating “free speech” would be silent
United seems to have handled this poorly, and I am not surprised that NZ found no reasonable grounds to charge and prosecute the passenger. Being peaceably disagreeable and annoying is not a crime as much as a social faux pas.
Unless the passenger was a clear and present security threat, the reason to divert seems to have just been a case of a power-tripping crew that would have had more clout with the US law enforcement regime than the generally more public-friendly NZ law enforcement regime.
Happen to agree with the commenters who stated that a flight should only divert for safety, security or major medical event reasons.
The South Asian passengers deliberately chose aisle and window seat on the (losing) bet the middle seat would end up being vacant, and they would end up with a de facto upgrade for free. I do this all the time.
When the South Asians lost their upgrade “bet”, they should’ve offered to switch seats with the man in the middle or else live with the losing bet by refraining from talking over him.
The flight attendant probably had the authority to switch the seats.
The captain or the copilot could’ve come back to give the man a heart to heart come to Jesus talk which probably would’ve defused the situation.
If nothing works, the airline certainly has the prerogative to be in the passenger for life, rather than.divert.
So I fault the airline, the flight officers and the cabin crew for not using problem-solving skills and manufacturing a fake emergency.
I doubt the complaining passenger is a racist, xenophobe or homophobe in real life. I think he found himself in a situation where he felt like he was being wronged, and the only weapon he could use to retaliate was his mouth, which he proceeded to use in a way intended to inflict the maximum amount of harm legally possible upon the wrongdoers.
I find the situation somewhat analogous to being sprayed by a skunk: Highly offensive? yes! Provoked? Yes!
I’d argue the passenger’s conduct indicated that he could have been a threat to cabin crew members. He was asked to sit down and stop creating a disturbance, and defied instructions. He was also becoming agitated and clearly escalating the situation. What should have happened? Reseat the pax (so someone else has to sit next to him) and hope he is quiet for the remainder of the flight? Beat him up? Restrain him for twelve hours until landing at SFO? I’d argue the alternatives create greater risk and/or liability for all parties involved.
Charge him with what crime? Being a loud asshole? United should not have diverted just because the guy was an asshole and annoying people around him – that’s the only outrageous thing. That’s not a safety, security or health issue. It seems likely the two guys on either side of him rolled the dice and I’d bet they were provoking him in order to prompt a seat switch.
United, and U.S. airlines in general, are getting WAY too power-trippy with stuff like this. Sorry, no evidence of a crime here.
Could UA sue the man for the costs it incurred? Well, anyone can bring a lawsuit…it might even have some merit, who knows. But at most it’s a civil matter (even that is a stretch) not a crim.
Gene: seems like it’s exactly what happened – he was reseated to the isle and appeared not to be using violence.
The idiot should be banned from flying. You’re in A public space that is concealed and 35,000 feet in the air. In this time and age there have been so many issues that lead to disaster in the air we don’t need an asshole throwing his ignorance all over the place. If you don’t like public spaces then don’t fly maybe you should take a Greyhound instead. He inconvenienced 250 passengers and you don’t know who missed what meetings or what surgeries or any other kind of important situation. He should be fined as well and made to pay all expenses that were caused to divert the plane to New Zealand.
@Roy: On a very narrow technical point, U.S. law does not obligate passengers “to obey flight attendants.” If a flight attendant ordered you to sing Happy Birthday or hop on one foot, you could lawfully refuse. Federal law imposes penalties on “An individual …who, by assaulting or intimidating a flight crew member or flight attendant of the aircraft, interferes with the performance of the duties of the member or attendant or lessens the ability of the member or attendant to perform those duties.” 49 U.S.C.A. § 46504. A crime occurs only if the person (A) “assaults or intimidates” a flight crew members, and (B) thereby interferes with the performance of that crew member’s lawful duties.
But I don’t want to get off on a tangent about the requirements of federal law, or whether this individual did or did not violate them, because that misses the larger point.
I am not defending the man’s lack of courtesy. Who could? My concern is that the United Airlines crew seems to have become so fixated on this one passenger that they forgot about their duty to the hundreds of other people who paid United to carry them from one place to another.
You ask if I would have “felt safe sitting next to this man if he were ranting at you and calling you foul names?” And the answer is an unequivocal yes, I would have felt “safe.” It would have been a miserable experience (just as it is miserable to sit next to a crying baby, or a person with awful body odor, or in front of a kid who keeps kicking your seat) but while it would have made me feel miserable, it would not have made me feel “unsafe.” While this guy obviously did not care about offending the people around him, it seems clear he wasn’t going to crash the plane.
Again, the larger issue is the duty that United owed the hundreds of other customers on this flight who just wanted to get to their destination as promptly and comfortably as possible. It seems like United forgot about them completely.
If switching these passengers’ seats, and moving the two related people next to each other, would have allowed hundreds of other people to get to their destination on time, it would have been a much better remedy. United could then have banned the rude guy for life, because nobody wants to be locked in a metal tube with someone like. United could even, if they believe he violated 49 U.S.C.A. § 46504, have reported the facts to law enforcement upon landing and allowed the appropriate law enforcement authorities to decide how to proceed. But instead of understanding their obligation to all the other passengers on this plane, United chose to disrupt the travel plans of hundreds of people.
@Dan if saying the word bomb on an airplane can remove you from the aircraft, why can’t a racial slur or an aggressive rant? They are both signs of violence. This to me is not the norm and I’ve flown for a very long time. If I was on the plane I would want this man removed as well but with consequences. He’s a grown man and if he can’t control his thoughts and do it in a peaceful way, then he should have all privileges removed when it comes to aviation travel.
From the actual article:
“Passenger Peter Barrett said the man was so aggravated he seemed near to physical violence, scaring passengers, the NZ Herald reported.”
That sounds like a potential safety issue to me.
@Carlo because getting your feelings hurt isn’t the same as being blown out of the air.
@Arcanum So spending another hour with the guy whose travel plans/life perhaps got dramatically changes isn’t a safety issue?
This passenger should definitely have to pay for the cost of the diversion. As another passenger on the plane I would have been extremely upset to have to listen to the ranting and fowl language for the remainder of the flight. You never know what else could happen with a deranged passenger like this. Maybe he was creating a diversion for something worse! I feel United acted appropriately!
Also, when flying coach with my spouse, we often book aisles across or the aisle and window seat as neither of us want to sit it the middle seat. If another passenger sits between us, we just deal with it. We would be extremely upset if an airline arbitrarily sat us next to each other just because we have the same last name.
It’s called free speech, you fat censorious twat. Charge the pilot with an unnecessary diversion – the loudmouth wasn’t doing anything that actually jeopardized the flight.
@TucsonRose : I’d be extremely upset if someone disrupted my travel plans because of foul language. Get a thicker skin or a pair of headphones.
There’s no bouncer to come in a kick him out there in there. He was on the plane with everyone else for at least another hour. Plenty of time for “something worse!” yet nothing happened and we didn’t even get to enjoy youtube footage of another doofus being dragged out of the plan by the authorities.
Airlines do arbitrary put people on the same reservation together. And they do get a lot of grief in some instances when they do not – families split etc.
Being a pile of white trash isn’t a chargeable offense, but creating a potential safety issue is cause to turn the plane around and stick him with the bill.
I’m with Dan on this. Guy was a complete ahole, and as someone above noted, probably needs some form of mental health treatment.
But based solely on the info we can gleam from the above article, diversion was a bad call.
Using a racial slur is ignorant and despicable, but in and of itself is not threatening. Some people think it’s threatening because of the way they are programmed to react when it is used.
Hold on, he might not be charged in New Zealand as he technically did not enter New Zealand — initial reports said he was refused entry as undesirable. (“In a statement, Immigration New Zealand confirmed that an American national was refused entry.”) So the police held him and ideally wanted to get rid of him on the next available flight that would take him.
But one report mentions: “Sources said the disruption could cost the United Airlines around $150,000.”
United could bill his daddy’s law firm for damages. And/or United could also ask the TSA to put him on the no-fly list. And he might yet face charges in the United States given that he caused disruption on a US-flag carrier en route to the United States.
Here’s hoping daddy’s law firm can clear that all up for junior.
I think this article seems to focus on the “racist” angle (probably to get clicks and be more sensational), but if you read the source article it’s clear his behavior was the problem, not the content of the speech — The Herald Report:
“This morning one of the passengers, Peter Barrett, wrote into the Herald, hours after he expected to get to the United States.
He described the man, seated near him, as being so aggravated it looked as if he was on a “short path to physical violence” and left many passengers fearful as to where it would end.
“He seemed agitated, scribbling in a dog-eared copy of Catcher in the Rye,” Barrett said. “At one point he went to the bathroom for 20 minutes which raised more than a few eyebrows.
“The behaviour seemed more like a pharmacological excess or deficit than simple alcohol.”
Woud you really want to be seated in the same sealed tube with this guy going on a rant for 12 hours? Not me!
@ Fred…free speech is not an absolute right. For example, yelling “fire” in a crowded movie theater is not protected speech.
SMH. Someone actually just suggested that United could ask this guy to be put on a No-Fly list.
Do people think security is a joke? Do they think the threats we face are not real?
In a world full of terrorists who wold love to destroy airliners, does anyone actually think the terrorism no-fly list should be used for a guy who used bad language. Does anyone really want anti-terrorism resources deployed to prevent bad words?
Have we lost all sense of perspective and priorities?
I’ve never seen passengers behaving this badly. Cabin crew, sure, but only on Spirit. I do not, however, want to get stuck with the tab for putting a guy in a US federal prison for the crime of high inconsideration for the feelings of others. Ban him from air travel and you guarantee it won’t happen in the sky again. By the way, are there no air marshals anymore?
@Fred: no free speech on private property. UA had full right to boot him. Doesn’t mean that they should.
@Steven M: how the hell could UA bill his fathers business? Is this Soviet Russia? Will they then proceed to bill everyone from the same town the guy grew up? Everyone with the same name?
@Dan: myself I’d feel more unsafe sitting to someone offended then the offender. If some bad words are threatening to some precious flowers, how would they react in a real emergency? What if you had to evacuate and the person next you has a panic attack?
Even if racial/homophobic slurs are protected speech, screaming them loudly at everyone on an aircraft at 30,000 ft speaks to his state of mind and represents a genuine threat to passengers who justifiably believe it could easily escalate to physical violence. He repeatedly left his seat to launch verbal attacks on crew members, refused to sit and remain calm, locked himself in the bathroom for over 20 minutes, and tried to steal drinks from the cart after being informed that the captain had banned him from consuming alcohol. Refusal to follow the captain’s/crew’s instructions, where there is a clear safety issue (it seemed likely that he had been drinking heavily), is a crime. Several passengers reported that he smelled of smoke after emerging from the bathroom – but that is, admittedly, anecdotal.
The crew tried to diffuse the situation very calmly. They asked his neighbors to switch seats so that he had a aisle seat, which they did immediately. They asked him to stop yelling, but he refused. They asked him to take his seat, which he refused. They cut off his alcohol, but he tried to steal it from the cart. He made threatening gestures (middle finger) to passengers and swore at them. He screamed the ‘C’ word several times while standing in the aisle next to children. Even if he wasn’t physically violent, there a risk that he was provoking one or more of the other passengers to physically attack him… as otherwise reasonable people are prone to do when being verbally abused and directly insulted for several hours. Several passengers and crew were making plans to physically restrain the guy if he turned violent – which seemed to be a significant risk.
I’m not sure what the protocol is in that situation, is it the airline’s duty to land as soon as possible to deal with the situation? If so, that’s what happened. Had he gone on to physically attack crew and passengers would it not be reasonable to call them out for not having taken appropriate action earlier given clear indications that he was somehow deranged? An abundance of caution at 30,000 ft probably trumps the inconvenience on balance.
His original outburst was not caught on camera, as it came out of the blue. One of his neighbors was trying to borrow a pen from the guy on the other side of him to fill in customs forms, and he launched into a full screaming tirade against them, 0 to 60 in a split second. They weren’t having a prolonged conversation over him. He was clearly unstable, either due to drink, drugs or some underlying psychiatric condition; it was a reasonable assessment to assume that he posed a physical threat.
OK, you might have noticed from past comments that I am typically the first one to try to find humor in situations, but this is dead serious this time. One in 5 in the USA has a mental illness. Granted, the very vast majority will function well, but, if then, again, one in 5 of those with mental illness are not stable, there is a possibility that between 2 and 4% of the passengers in the elongated, confining metal tube with seats we call an airplane will be potentially not mentally stable.
I have, legally, to say thatI have never evaluated this person, and, that all statements and opiions expressed are purely speculative.
I have been a practicing psychiatrist for almost 40 years, and have had to write commitment papers on people engaging in this kind of irrational, random behavior, that, to say the least, shows poor judgement, and irrationality.
Are there any standardized protocols for dealing with mentally ill passengers?
Asians do not talk they yell, I have been stuck between 2 fat slobs, and the hang over was not from drinking,,
A plane should be diverted because if a danger, this guy was civil, from what I seen., not worth all the trouble if the diversion,,
I have seen screaming kid cause far more distractions.
The obvious bigotry here is really surprising. You would get thrown out of a McDonalds, and have the police called, if you were flipping off customers, calling the cashier a fatass, and making racial slurs toward other customers. Yet commenters above think this is ok because “South Asians are loud”, on the basis of no evidence whatsoever? It should be clear that pilots do not divert, let alone try three separate diversions, unless they are worried something will happen over the middle of the Pacific (like this guy starting a physical fight, which seems totally plausible given the video).
I can understand someone thinking jail is a strong punishment here… But defending him entirely? I can only hope I don’t have to share a flight with a bigot like Bill above.
One Word – Taser.
@Kevin : booting someone from McD doesn’t put the other patrons in another country for a day.
Amazing… all those making excuses for this lout. B/t/w folks, free speech only applies to government action not a person or business.
Yes, in the age of Trump, where rude and thinly veiled racist comments are viewed as merely telling it like it is, this won’t be the last one of these. Gary will have material for years.
Always a good sign when someone has a copy of Catcher in the Rye in their possession.
People today have lost all sense of perspective, proportion, and common sense, to such a degree that they can hardly tell the difference between ugly words and genuine threats to flight safety.
The people on this thread are committing the same error of judgment as the United crew: They are fixating on this one individual and completely forgetting the rights, desires, and needs of the hundreds of other passengers on this flight.
Most of the people on this thread are so bent out of shape that this man made racially insensitive comments that the interest of hundreds of other people, who paid for transportation from one place to another, fades to insignificance when compared with the need to mete out punishment for the sin of racial insensitivity, regardless of the cost to a hundreds of innocent travelers.
Ok, he called someone a fatass. The Flight Attendant was a fat. So, I do not see anything wrong by him saying that. It might be offensive but he did not commit a crime and he said it out of frustration.
Perhaps they could have found him an aisle seat by switching someone else and then offering the other passenger miles or an upgrade to defuse the situation.
But as usual here, United crew exercised their false sense of authority, because United crews are such on powertrip and we see this happen often with United.
United crew used a bad judgement regardless of the cost to hundreds of travelers.
I think you all have lost the perspective and common sense. He simply called the Flight Attendant, fat ass. I do not see anything illegal with this statement. Certainly he did not violate any safety rules or put any other passengers safety in danger.
It is the United waitress whom over reacted and from what I can in the small clip she is a fat large woman. If the shoe fits wear it. She just got too bitchy and emotional and walked away threatening to kill him out of the flight instead of being professional and dealing with this situation as she should have. But United people are self centered and crave drama and they caused more of an international drama that defusing this situation. He did not do anything illegal and he certainly did not put anyone’s safety at risk.
What a jerk! and Dan seems like just the guy who would love to be seated next to this one. Racist rant is an offense. Else you will have everyone ranting and cursing on a flight about the things they don’t like. E.g. fat against thin, white against all others, rich against poor, etc. etc. Get real, this man deserves to be kicked out and prosecuted.
Any guesses as to how many of the sympathetic voices here come from white males? Uh huh. Yah, Asians only “yell?” What an ignoramus.
@James H: No-one here is “sympathetic” to the guy who cursed a flight attendant and some of his fellow passengers. If you heard sympathy, it is only because your antennae for outrage are overly-sensitive. Along with your instinct to attack white males.
No-one is saying that the guy acted well. We are saying that United Airlines should not have inconvenienced hundreds of people because one person used some ugly words.
If you heard sympathy for the man’s rudeness in these comments, it says more about you than about the commenters.
I have been on a SYD-HNL flight on QF when a woman ran amok halfway through the 10-hour fight. Initially, arguing with her partner, who then poured his drink over her, she then walking the cabin aisle with no shirt on, ranting and raving and then tried to bite the cabin crew when they tried to deal with her.
She was restrained by the cabin crew and tied to a seat in the back row whereupon she screamed abuse at all and sundry for four hours.
The crew eventually addressed the passengers to request a doctor so they could administer an airline-issued syringe of tranquiliser.
On arrival at the gate at HNL all passengers were instructed to remain seated. Two state troopers with face masks and rubber gloves entered the aircraft and marched her off.
Point of the above story – UA had another choice, if they felt that the passenger was so much of a threat to warrant a flight diversion, he could have been isolated / restrained and all would then have continued to the destination.
Another interesting point – as reported both Samoa and Fiji refused to accept the diverted aircraft. Would they have acted thus if they deemed there was a genuine security threat to the aircraft warranting an emergency diversion?
Final observation – on the video etc cabin crew member is not helping to diffuse the situation by saying things like stop shouting when he clearly wasn’t…having two people talk across you would be extremely annoying: it just got to show that simple situations can get unseemly if all players don’t use a bit of calm and common sense.
PS. Now that the good folk of the US have chosen a president who will tweet or say anything no matter how offensive and ill-informed and racially abusive in his self interest, such incidents could become more commonplace as folk take their cue from their political “leaders”.
Although a republican (political system not political party) rather than a monarchist at heart (with regard to Australian political system), I can suddenly see the value of having a well mannered and stoic royal family to instil some core values around basic manners and decorum…
“I doubt the complaining passenger is a racist, xenophobe or homophobe in real life. I think he found himself in a situation where he felt like he was being wronged…”
“@Dan: myself I’d feel more unsafe sitting to someone offended then the offender. ”
” The Flight Attendant was a fat. So, I do not see anything wrong by him saying that. It might be offensive but he did not commit a crime and he said it out of frustration.”
Yah. No sympathy here. And if you think my comments were a “attack” on white males…you truly are blindly self-entitled.
@James H: been in a situation where the passenger next to me (a white male) was more or less physically disruptive (ended up with a walk of shame with the authorities on the ground – flight of shame on the other occasion since a drunk was literally just thrown out of a regional jet), so cut that hippie crap, I can hate all races and genders equally.
@Dan What you are saying is passengers and crew must tolerate any amount of offensive, racist crap for hours on end as long as the offender avoids making a clear and immediate threat to the safety of the flight. Correct?
IMO flight safety is more than not crashing the plane. It includes maintaining an on board environment that is free from harassing and intimidating behavior ( as perceived by a reasonable person).
If the only way of getting this lout – and he fits the definition perfectly – to stfu was to get his sorry ass off the plane, then well done United, very well done.
P.S. always book with a card with good trip interruption coverage.
No fly list . Not grown up enough for air travel . If you can’t be civil you can take the bus . Illegal behavior is not required for corporate sanctions . Passengers should not have to endure such vile behavior .
Dan and others are trying to make excuses for this heathen . His actions are inexcusable .
No fly list !
I came here to read the 52 comments and only see two.
/leaving sad.
You have to look at the bigger picture to assess this situation properly. A quick look at a short video, taken during one of his quieter interactions, doesn’t reflect the seriousness of the situation. Clearly there are some prepared to accept that freedom of speech can get ugly and that’s a reasonable price you have to pay for that freedom. Racial slurs are indeed protected under FOS; however, if it’s directed at someone in a derogatory manner or deemed to be threatening, then it can be a breach of the peace. And there are other people (I’m lookin’ at you Bill) with similar views who think this is OK because it fits their own ignorant worldview. But how many of you would do this, by yourself, on a flight? When have you ever seen a lone person standing face to face with someone hurling racial abuse where it didn’t escalate into a physical fight? It’s the sort of thing that angry mobs at Trump rallies do when they vastly outnumber the person being abused, or that anonymous trolls do; they wouldn’t, as individuals, physically go into somewhere where they were outnumbered and start racially abusing people around them; out of common sense and a realistic appreciation of the risks of the situation – even racists can figure that out.
When someone does this, it’s clearly more than simple ignorant racism/bigotry, these are the actions of someone socially inept, mentally diminished, spinning out of control, who isn’t capable of properly assessing the risks or of conducting himself in a nonthreatening manner. He was a small guy, under 6′ and around 160 pounds. The article says he was 42, but he looked to be in his late 50’s. Of the 100 people within earshot of his racial slurs the chances of one of them reacting badly and knocking his teeth out were pretty high. But he was oblivious to that and kept up this highly risky behavior for several hours, flaring up again and again out of the blue or because he had been denied alcohol, and then quickly calming back down and even falling asleep occasionally. To anyone familiar with psychiatric conditions, it has several markers for sociopathy.
Someone with so little self control being utterly aggressive for hours while trapped in a confined space posed too much of a safety threat to ignore. The flight crew tried maybe a dozen times to give him a way out – by simply sitting quietly for the remainder of the journey – but he refused and continued to act belligerently. When he locked himself away in the bathroom for half an hour people began to worry what he was up to. Would he emerge and try to open the cabin doors or something crazy? Would he manage to fashion some sort of weapon? In fact, he emerged crying and sat down quite calmly, perhaps finally realizing the trouble he was in after taking time to reflect. He didn’t flare up again until the plane had landed when he made a phone call demanding help. When it became apparent that the person on the other end wasn’t complying with his demands he started abusing that person and demanding to talk to someone else, and then got carried away again and started abusing the passengers around him again. Once the police started down the aisle he realized the show was over and started crying again, occasionally hurling a few more insults at people videoing the process.
My guess is that he wasn’t charged in NZ because he never officially entered NZ. He spent a day or two locked up in preclearance. If they’d charged him then they’d have had to admit him and deal with him. If they could get him on a flight to the US with habeas corpus rules then it’s down to the US authorities to deal with him. He certainly committed at least one actionable crime by directly ignoring the captain’s very reasonable drink ban and grabbing at the cart and flight attendant trying to get one. United are certainly within their rights to ban him, and probably have an excellent case to sue for their loss (around $150,000). Other airlines would be foolish not to follow suit. As to whether he will be criminally charged, who knows?
I’m sure lots of otherwise reasonable people have ‘lost their shit’ from time to time, in the heat of the moment. But there was nothing to cause his behavior (two guys who knew each other talking past him to borrow a pen to fill in the landing forms), and then to lose it for 5 hours abusing anyone who made eye contact – that doesn’t fall within the realms of reasonable behavior and is indicative of some serious underlying problem that made him very unpredictable and therefore an unknown but genuine threat. He may well have psychological issues or he may have been under the influence of drugs/drink; either way he is not fit to be allowed on commercial airlines.
PS. I suspect the tears were crocodile tears, intended to manipulate people into a sympathetic reaction, either to get the flight crew not to have him arrested or to play the victim for the police. They looked fake. In fact, he displayed no real emotions other than anger and rage throughout – anything else seemed poorly acted.
Gary Leff is outraged? Stop the press!
@Nate hit ‘previous page’ to see the first 50 🙂
The Big large United Air waitress with glasses, pissed him off even more. First of all, she should have never said that he was shouting. He was not shouting, he was simply stating his
disappointment about being seated in the middle of two traveling together.
She should have diffused the situation, instead of getting all prissy on powertrip to threaten to call the authorities and get him even more pissed off.
Her job is to remain calm and listen to customers and be an ambassador for an airline and she did a very pour job. In most cases all United Flight Attendants treat passengers poorly. United has one of the highest passenger complaint rate and United crews are known to be the nastiest meanest in the industry. Just google and you will see. No shock that his words were not chosen wisely and his behavior was due to his frustration. However the airline employees need to know how to handle these situations instead of acting out of their ego which United people do so often.
Racism aside (because everyone is bias and cultural differences in what is acceptable is a real thing). Why didnt they have him trade seats with someone else? He probably was trying to read a book or watch a movie and could not concentrate as the people were talking loud enough to hear one another in a loud plane or possibly he was tired and needed sleep so was cranky and couldn’t sleep. Who wouldn’t honestly be annoyed by that? He probably let it build up inside and just blew up in anger. As Jedi’s say anger leads to hate. In fact the posters here let their anger lead to their own hate. Racism is a reflection of the natural psychological group process of “storming, forming, norming”
@David agreed. Where we don’t have video concerning what happened before her statement that he was shouting at her in that moment was clearly not true at all. I was on an United flight where a man had his elderly mother in law move from the row behind him into the seat next to him. Problem was the seat next to him cost more than the seat behind him did. The FA came over and told him that she has to return to her original seat. This was totally proper because she didn’t pay the extra money for that seat. The guy got arrogant and mouthed off a bit to the FA. He did not curse, he did not shout, he did not stand up or make any gestures. In under 10 seconds the FA was threatening to go to the captain. FAs go on power trips like this and while she was in the right to have the woman move the threatening to go to the captain at the drop of a hat in the situation I observed was really absurd..