A passenger on a flight Sunday from San Francisco to Chicago allegedly threatened a flight attendant as other crew members tried to defuse the situation, Business Insider reported.
In a video clip posted to TikTok by user emily_jeann, a woman carrying a toddler was seen pushing her elbow into a flight attendant’s neck and saying, “I will kill you. I will fucking kill you,” as another flight attendant tried to separate them:
@emily_jeannn Just had an interesting flight home. #united #candycrush10 #sanfrancisco #chicago
The flight attendant in the left-hand side of the frame told the passenger, “You need to take a seat, we are landing” while the passenger screamed, “Where is it?”
The flight attendant then instructed her colleague to step back and told the passenger she was “out of line.”
The individual who shared the clip taken on United Airlines flight 476 later said the woman was yelling “gibberish,” and got up from her seat but would not sit back down.
Another video posted by social media user Peter Kondelis showed a different angle and one flight attendant rushing over to help the individuals standing in the aisle:
United confirmed the incident in a statement to the outlet which said the disruptive customer was removed by law enforcement once the plane landed and “one member of the flight attendant crew was taken to a hospital for evaluation. We’re grateful to our crew for handling this difficult situation with professionalism and for putting the safety of our team and our customers first.”
A similar instance occurred in September when a passenger was arrested for allegedly sucker-punching a flight attendant during a flight from Mexico to Los Angeles, Breitbart News reported.
“Alexander Tung Cuu Le, 33, was arrested after the flight landed at LAX on suspicion of interfering with a flight. The FBI took over the investigation due to the incident occurring mid-air,” the outlet said.
Per the Insider report, Chicago Police said officers responded to the airport that morning and one of them said three individuals were taken to a hospital for observation and agents with the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) were looking into the matter.
So far, no serious injuries were reported to have occurred during the incident.
Last year, a Southwest Airlines flight attendant was hospitalized following a passenger assault during the boarding process for a flight from Dallas to New York, Fox 4 reported:
The suspect was eventually charged with aggravated assault and “this comes just days after the FAA announced a partnership with the FBI to make these attacks on flight crew members easier to prosecute on the federal level,” a reporter with the outlet said.