Wild footage shows a first class American Airlines passenger being forcibly removed from a plane, apparently after he kicked off at staff for not serving him a pre-takeoff G&T.
The clip, which was shared to the PublicFreakout subreddit and quickly amassed almost 40,000 upvotes, begins midway through a war of words between a passenger and the airline stewards, which apparently ‘all started over being denied a pre-takeoff gin and tonic’.
As things escalate, staff tell the man to leave the plane or they’ll call the police.
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The man hits back: “Respectfully, I’m asking what crime I’ve committed.”
A staff member then asks: “Did you not give it to the flight attendant about getting a drink?”
They threaten to ‘deboard the whole plane’ if the man doesn’t get off.
Staff then remove the passenger’s hand luggage as the situation escalates, repeating: “Get off the plane, sir. We’re trying to be civil with you.
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“There’s 100 people waiting on you, man.”
The man, still insisting he has no idea what he’s done wrong, says: “What did I do?”
The staff member responds: “You’ve been asked to get off the plane, so get off the plane. We don’t need no reason.”
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The man starts filming himself at this stage, which only makes things worse.
More and more staff members turn up to deal with the rowdy passenger, and one of them appears to take his phone from him.
The man is then forcibly walked down the plane aisle and removed from the aircraft while screaming: “Stop! Stop! Stop!”
We next see him restrained on the floor as the clip ends.
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The man wasn’t finding much sympathy among those who viewed the clip on Reddit.
One wrote: “Whether it takes 30 seconds or 5 minutes, and whether you want to or not, the result is always the same - you WILL be getting off the plane.”
Another said: “He even pulled out the ‘sobbing like a toddler’ move.”
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A third added: “Yea, this whole interaction reminds me of Disney theme parks in the late afternoon when the parents get too hot and tired and want to leave, but the kid wants to stay and starts having a meltdown.”
Another wrote: "People mistakenly believe, like this guy, that flying is a right and that planes are like public transportation or something. He asks multiple times, 'What crime did I commit?'
"Bro you don't need to have committed a crime, you just had to make the flight attendants upset and they can throw you off for whatever reason they want."
I guess the moral of this story is that, if you ignore flight attendants' requests to get off a plane, they might not ask so nicely next time.
LADbible has contacted American Airlines for a comment.
Simon Fearn