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US passenger punches flight attendant, then tries to jump out of plane
After the altercation with flight attendant, the man rushed to jump out of the plane.
An angry passenger on a United Airlines flight had to be held back by fellow travellers from jumping out of the plane after he allegedly punched a flight attendant. The incident occurred on a Texas-bound flight on Wednesday when the plane was about to take off, ABC reported.
A video of the incident that is now doing rounds on social media shows the man attempting to strike the flight attendant, before managing to open the aircraft’s emergency exit.
The footage was shot by a passenger, Naya Jimenez. She claimed that the man became violent after the flight attendant asked him and his wife to move out of her assigned seat.
"They had to bring in a gate attendant to try to talk to both of them," she told ABC7. “Then, he began slurring his speech a little bit, like, 'Sir, why are you smiling at me?' That's the first thing he said,” Jimenez added.
After the altercation, the man rushed to jump out of the plane, she claimed.
"After he paused for a minute, he ran toward where the pilot was, where the emergency exit doors are, and attempted to open it. He successfully opened the emergency exit and was about to jump down," said Jimenez.
"The plane was elevated, so he would have jumped apparently two stories to the ground, and the flight attendants just kicked in, and everybody pulled him back to safety," she added.
Reacting to the incident, the airline banned the passenger from future United Airlines flights, and said: “On Sunday night, our team at San Francisco International Airport immediately contacted law enforcement officials after a customer became disruptive during boarding. We're grateful to our team in San Francisco for their professionalism in this situation and for looking out for the safety of our customers and their fellow United employees,".
The 47-year-old man was arrested by San Francisco police on battery charges related to this incident.
