Unruly Off-Duty Flight Attendant Disrupts Cross-Country Flight, Threatens to Take Plane Down, Is Subdued By Crew and Passengers

An unruly passenger disrupted a Delta flight from Los Angeles to Atlanta, getting on the intercom and even threatening to take the plane down, before being subdued. And the perpetrator was reportedly one of Delta’s own flight attendants, off-duty at the time.

CNN Newsroom’s Pamela Brown showed video clips from the alarming incident, edited to blur the faces of those involved. According to Brown, the alleged perpetrator went to the front of the plane about two hours before the plane was scheduled to land, where he seized the intercom. The flight’s captain called on “all able-bodied men to help with the emergency,” and passengers assisted the crew until they were able to successfully subdue the man.

A passenger who was on the flight spoke with Brown and said that the man had ordered passengers to return to their seats because oxygen masks were going to be required.

The aircraft landed “without incident,” reported Brown, neither the flight attendants nor passengers were injured seriously enough to warrant medical attention, and law enforcement on the ground restrained the man after the plane made an emergency landing in Oklahoma City.

Delta has confirmed that the man was an off-duty flight attendant employed by their company, but other details about his identity are not yet known. It is unknown if he is still employed by Delta, but, as Brown noted, that could change at any time, especially if criminal charges are filed related to the incident on the plane.

The troubling scene is the “latest among a string of cases” aboard flights since the pandemic restrictions have eased, said Brown, with 2900 of this type of case reported so far by the FAA.

Watch the video above, via CNN.