A New Year's Day flight from Sydney to San Francisco had to be diverted after a man launched into a racist, homophobic tirade, verbally abusing other passengers and the cabin crew.
Passenger arrested after United Airlines flight to San Francisco diverts to Auckland
Witnesses say the unnamed 42-year-old American passenger became angry when two men seated on either side of him, who were described as being of South Asian descent, spoke to each other over him.
In a video of the incident, posted on Facebook by another passenger, the man can be heard yelling at a flight attendant, "If you guys treat people right on these things, you see two last names the same, don't put someone else in the middle of them. I'm not yelling... you want to hear me fucking yelling."
"Do you know how cool it would be to have the airplane turned around because of me?" taking his rant to the next level of asshole. "You are going to do that? You do that? I'm being so impolite aren't I? Fat ass."
The situation escalated when other flight attendants tried to intervene.
"The rant progressed from cursing Indians to Asians to Muslim to non-whites in general and calling flight crew f***ots and fat asses," according to one passenger who was seated three to four rows in front of the man.
The passenger was arrested and escorted off the plane by police after the flight was re-routed to Auckland. However, the man reportedly wasn't charged and only remained in police custody while arrangements were made for him to board a flight back to the United States. (He was not allowed entry to New Zealand.)
A United spokesperson said the flight was diverted because a passenger "failed to follow crew instructions."
That's it? This entitled racist, homophobic asshole verbally harasses and physically threatens passengers and crew, makes everyone on this flight suffer, and all he gets is the mild inconvenience of having to book another flight? No charges? That is some serious bullshit privilege.
More here: United Airlines flight from Sydney diverted due to unruly passenger
