An American Airlines passenger was put in a headlock and removed from the plane in a chaotic scene after he hurled an antisemitic slur at a flight attendant, according to reports and video footage. During the outburst, which led to a 30-minute delay, the man shouted an anti-Semitic slur at a flight attendant and appeared to threaten another passenger.
The unruly male passenger was escorted off flight 2506, scheduled to fly from Tampa International Airport to Philadelphia on Tuesday. The chaos erupted even before the aircraft could leave the airport. The disruptive passenger, dressed in a blue and white striped button-down shirt, hurled insults at both staff and fellow passengers.
Chaos Inside Flight
Video footage of the incident, shared in three parts on X (formerly known as Twitter), captured the moments preceding the man being escorted off the plane. The footage starts with the man, wearing a white and blue button-down shirt, standing in the middle of the aisle while other passengers look on.
"I will universally, publicly, mess you up," the man says before he turns to face a male flight attendant.
"Get off the plane," a female says in the background.
Female passengers begin discussing whether the man brought a bag onboard as he continues arguing with the airline employee.
Eventually, he moves to a nearby window seat and sits down, while a female flight attendant asks, "Do you have any bags or belongings you want to retrieve before you get off?"
The irate passenger responds, "Uh, you all attacked me with two individuals against one?" The male flight attendant then addresses another passenger seated behind him, while the angry man insists that he "didn't hit anyone."
"Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's OK raising my voice to a female? I'll see about it with you k***," he says.
The flight attendant then turns back to the irate passenger and asks, "What?"
As surprised passengers look on, the irate passenger continues and says, "You as a K*** human."
"And it's because I'm sitting down, and I'm lower than you?"
He says: "You wanna be a tough guy, bruh?"
He then turns to a female onboard and says, "I'm moving, I'm moving, and you know what?"
"You're teaming up. Do you see how most of the people are white here? Yeah, yeah so you were like 'ahhhhh.'"
Argument Delays Take Off
As annoyed passengers begin to engage with him while the plane remains on the runway, the man persists, stating, "I'm trying to get to my home country, and you all are making it harder for me to get there!"
A woman then responds to him, saying, "We don't know where you're going!"
"I'm telling you, I'm telling you," he says adding, "No,no,no,no,' and pats the head of the man behind him referring to him as the 'white-haired guy."
In the third part of the video, the man continues to speak out, while a white male passenger, wearing a dark blue hoodie and baseball hat, approaches the unruly flyer in an attempt to manage the situation.
"Let me see you up front, cuz," the passenger says to the man in blue.
"Sir, sir," a female flight attendant says.
"Come to the front, cuz," the passenger in the hat says to the rowdy man as he guides him out of his seat.
"Let me see the big guy," he says as he steps out of his seat and into the aisle with the man in the blue shirt.
While the argument continues, the female employee pulls out a walkie-talkie and says '311' as the two men begin to push each other in the middle of the aisle. They stumble around, colliding with other passengers in the aisle, while others seated pull out their phones to record the chaotic scene.
The flight attendant calls for assistance once again as the man in the hat places the irate passenger in a headlock.
"Now put your hands down and don't touch anybody," the man screamed as he kept his counterpart in the headlock.
"I'm a police officer," said a woman in a backward hat as she approached the duo, prompting the man in blue to respond, "So am I."
"Turn around and walk," the man in blue instructed the disruptive passenger as he continued to restrain his arms.
The woman in the hat and another passenger with a sleeve tattoo then helped in escorting the unruly man to the plane's exit, as shown in the footage.
According to the Philadelphia Inquirer, the Tampa International Airport Police Department said that a man was arrested outside the plane around 5:30 p.m. on Tuesday. He was charged with disorderly intoxication and two counts of battery.
