Imagine sitting peacefully on your flight when all of a sudden the pilot sends a frantic message over the intercom asking all the “strong men” to come to the front of the plane for help.
You hear a loud commotion and then witness a group of men trying to take down a fellow passenger.
Well, once you hear what happened next on this Delta flight, you’re bound to be stunned.
One can’t imagine what the other Delta passengers must have felt when they heard the call for “strong men” to come assist with an unruly passenger.
I know, personally, I’d think, “Is the plane being hijacked?” or “Is our plane about to go down?”
As it turns out, a Delta flight from Los Angeles to Atlanta was forced to make an emergency landing after a passenger in first class went absolutely ballistic.
Apparently, the passenger hijacked the intercom system and told all passengers to put on their oxygen masks and take their seats…
… and then he attempted to open the door of the plane while it was in flight!
But here’s the craziest part of all.
The lunatic man wasn’t just your typical unruly passenger…
… he was actually an off-duty flight attendant!
Paddle Your Own Kanoo reported:
“One witness onboard the flight claims the suspect was an off-duty flight attendant who had boarded the flight wearing a white crash helmet. During the flight, the off-duty flight attendant allegedly passed on a note claiming that the man sat next to him was a terrorist…
With the cabin lights still dimmed for the red-eye flight to Atlanta, one flight attendant can be heard screaming “HELP!” to attract the attention of other passengers further back the aircraft.”
You just can’t make this stuff up.
Thankfully the men on the plane were heroes and able to restrain the off-duty flight attendant while the pilot made an emergency landing.
Authorities took the rogue flight attendant into custody, and no passengers were harmed.
Since the incident, the unruly passenger is facing up to 20 years in prison and a hefty $250,000 fine.
The pandemic has heaped stress upon a lot of people, and many of them are publicly losing their minds, like the cocaine snorting, “knife-wielding” man who also caused an emergency landing.
In fact, according to the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), since January 2021, they’ve received roughly 2,500 complaints of passengers gone wild.
Some cases involve things like “not wearing masks” while others are more extreme like passengers assaulting flight attendants.
The FAA has vowed to crack down and increase the penalty for disrupting flights, and airlines are taking matters into their own hands too.
Southwest has refused to resume serving alcohol on board their flights, and Delta has promised to ban passengers FOR LIFE if they “act rude” on the plane.
While it can be easy to point fingers at weary passengers, it is clear that airline employees are losing their minds too.
A previous scuffle between airline employees left a flight attendant with a broken arm and the pilot with a missing tooth.
And this most recent story of an off-duty flight attendant believing he’s a terrorist and telling passengers to put on their oxygen masks while he tries to open the cabin door shows just how crazy travel has become.
But instead of addressing the mental health of employees, airlines are asking their employees to work even harder and “volunteer” their time to fill in spots where they don’t feel like paying employees or contractors.
From the looks of things, it sounds like it’s not just us travelers who need a vacation – airline employees could sure use one too.
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