Sunday’s United Airlines flight 90 from Newark to Tel Aviv returned to the U.S. several hours into the flight – making a nearly six hour flight to nowhere – after a passenger decided to sit in crew jump seats while waiting for the lavatory. A flight attendant wound up in an argument with the passenger, and things escalated.
The man was told that if he didn’t return to his seat, the aircraft would have to return to New York. The man… didn’t return to his seat. The plane did turn back. And law enforcement met the aircraft on arrival. Passengers initially learned they were turning around from the moving map, rather than an announcement from the cockpit. The flight was rescheduled to Monday.
In video from on board the aircraft, the disruptive passenger can be seen being taken off the plane once it returned to Newark. And in additional video, the man – who was not placed under arrest – could be seen inside the airport “pleading his case” that,
- He hadn’t ever gotten physical with the crewmember
- And they’d overreacted
Thanks, bro. pic.twitter.com/kmXMXDAooA
— Jeff Hunt (@jeffhunt) April 23, 2023
Guy who disrupted a flight to Tel Aviv and forced a return to Newark not even arrested. Just wondering the airport pleading his case. Unbelievable. pic.twitter.com/fCsNifE0g5
— Jeff Hunt (@jeffhunt) April 23, 2023
Apparently the man was hanging around the airport voluntarily rather than heading home.
“He just kind of hung around everybody, which was bizarre and bold,” [a passenger said] “If I was escorted off an airplane I would have hung my head in shame and disappeared, but he spent four hours talking to people.”
On the whole I think that United Airlines flight attendants do a good job of de-escalation. They may have overreacted in turning the aircraft around, although if a passenger isn’t following crewmember instructions and there’s no easy diversion that’s a judgment call for the captain. There’s little question, though, the a flight attendant is in their rights to ask a passenger to vacate crew seats – just as a passenger might ask another to get up if they found someone sitting in their seat after going to the lavatory.
A passenger who refuses to obey a Flight Crews directive is deemed combative and is not seen as someone you would want sitting next to an emergency exit. Flying is a privilege and not a right. For some reason people believe they have the right and obligation to act like they are in charge. Unfortunately with todays herd mentality it would not take much to have multiple passengers take up the man’s obstinate behavior at 30,000 plus feet and now you have a really uncomfortable situation in an enclosed environment. Physicality does not have to play into it. Words and lack of words can project demeanor faster than a fist. You do not have to be a large person to be threatening. We weren’t there. Flight Attendants have a job to do. He interfered with it. Commenters try to make it sound trivial. It is not. None of the commentators were.
Again our gutless legislators fail to react to blatant behavior in the air. these idiots should be banned for life and put in jail. Then we have the gun control issue that the gutless legislators fail to address.
I find the exasperation of the passengers that the guy wasn’t arrested upon landing to be exasperating. What should he be arrested for? Sitting in the crew jump seat? That’s might be boorish, but isn’t a crime.
What is much closer to a crime is the crew turning around a plane because they felt the need to prove a point. The guy may — or may not be — a dick. But the crew is horrible for using it as a rationale for flexing their muscles and turning the plane around unnecessarily – which is even more childish.
The man was at fault and LE could have met him at arrival in Israel. Turning the plane around is ridiculous and the pilots should be called out to explain their actions. He posed no threat to the aircraft. This caused great inconvenience to the other passengers and great cost to the airline. I sometimes think the airlines are oblivious to how there overreactions affect their customers. We need a little bit more common sense.
@flyer1 Practice what you preach and stop being hypocritical.
@flyer1 I’m not sure many of you have ever flown in a plane. Unless the F/A threw herself on the floor in front of the lav door or put a cart in front of it, the door can easily be opened from the inside. Nutty story. I’m so glad all my flights are drama free and I actually get nice passengers to engage with across the oceans. A lot of you sound like 15 year old idiots in here that need to grow up.
@Fred, we get it. You hate flight attendants, your job, your life, your family. I’m glad you get to feel good every time you post something hateful. It must be so tiring being you. I’m exhausted just thinking about it. Hope you have a really nice day. There are a lot of kind people out here. If you’d just slow your roll you might notice a
Why didn’t several passengers get together and throw the jerk out of the jump seat, rather than have their flight aborted?
Please put him on the no-fly list.
I like to fly. I pay my own way, not on some employer-paid ticket. I don’t want to give up flying and resort to a transatlantic crossing on a Cunard Ship.
Now, every time I pick and book a flight, a big factor is, “what are my chances of encountering fellow passenger incivility that puts significant stress on my schedule and well-being?”
Suppose that, instead of being “a guy”, it were a pregnant woman who sat in the jump seat. Would you still want to put her “on the no fly list”. Either way, this was just a person who really “had to go” and had difficulty walking all the way back to her or his seat.
@JH, any relation to Lily H? Hope you a wonderful day.