A cross-country flight descended into mayhem when an unruly airline passenger allegedly hurled racist insults and began striking travelers with his seat belt, which forced the plane to make an unscheduled stop.
Unruly airline passenger diverts flight
What began as a routine Breeze Airways Flight MX704 from Norfolk, Virginia, to Los Angeles quickly spiraled into a nightmare at 30,000 feet on Wednesday.
The aircraft was diverted to Grand Junction Regional Airport in Colorado after an unruly airline passenger needed to be restrained.
Authorities say the man, later identified as 46-year-old David Leroy Carter, was intoxicated, shouting racial slurs, and acting aggressively toward both airline crew and fellow passengers.
The Grand Junction Police Department reported that he was also waving a skateboard during part of the disturbance.
Cellphone footage from inside the cabin shows Carter blatantly ignoring repeated commands from a flight attendant urging him to take a seat.
“You need to sit down,” she told him as he shoved past her in the aisle.
That’s when another traveler, identified only as Ray, decided enough was enough.
Football player puts airline aggressor back in his seat
Drawing on his past as a high school football player, Ray grabbed Carter under the arms and forcibly sat him down.
“Sit your a** down,” Ray told him, prompting cheers from nearby passengers.
One flight attendant can be heard celebrating the moment: “There we go.”
Onlookers later dubbed Ray the “linebacker in 17C” for his forceful takedown.
Ray told KNBC his actions were instinctive. “Instinct just took over,” he said. “I didn’t know it was going to get all like this. It was just instinct.”
“My son was on there and there were other kids on there, and so I just had to sit him down,” he added.
Comedian PK Mackey, seated just a row away, said the move was nothing short of “amazing.”
“He literally picked this man up underneath his armpits and put him down like it was in a car seat,” Mackey told reporters.
Another passenger, Jeff Hankerson, described it as watching someone handle “a little kid,” saying Ray simply got up and sat Carter down.
Unruly airline passenger uses seat belt as weapon
But Carter’s outburst in the less-than-friendly skies didn’t end there. While restrained, he allegedly broke free, grabbing a “waist belt,” and began swinging it at anyone trying to stop him.
According to audio from Air Traffic Control, the makeshift weapon was actually one of the tools being used to subdue him.
“Approach said that the passenger is free and he’s using what they are trying to restrain him with as a weapon,” one transmission noted.
“Hitting people with his own waist belt, right?” came the response. “Belt, yes sir,” a flight crew member confirmed.
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Several passengers reportedly stepped in to help restrain him until the plane touched down.
When the aircraft finally landed in Grand Junction, police officers boarded and escorted Carter off the plane in handcuffs.
Video added by a shaken passenger shows the suspect being marched down the aisle by law enforcement.
While police reported no serious injuries, the airline later confirmed that a crew member and a passenger were treated for minor harm.
Breeze Airways released a statement saying, “Our focus now is on taking care of our Crew and remaining Guests who have been unfairly inconvenienced by this unfortunate event and getting them safely to their final destination as quickly as possible.”
The FBI has taken over the investigation, and Carter was booked into the Mesa County Detention Facility pending federal charges. Passengers ultimately arrived at LAX roughly six hours later than planned.
This latest incident comes just a week after another disruptive airline episode went viral.
Flight attendant confronts unhinged vaper
On August 4, an American Airlines passenger, Peter Nguyen, was removed from a Phoenix-to-San Francisco flight after being caught vaping in the airplane bathroom.
Nguyen recorded his confrontation with a visibly irritated flight attendant who called him out for the in-flight violation.
“I was actually sitting on the toilet, and you were opening the door,” Nguyen claimed from the bathroom doorway.
“I don’t care!” she shot back, prompting Nguyen to apologize for vaping. “You can keep saying you’re sorry, but I care about all these passengers,” she told him.
The tense exchange escalated when Nguyen accused the flight attendant of trying to grab his phone and declared, “I have 25,000 followers that are going to watch this.”
The crew wasn’t impressed. One attendant challenged him directly: “Why are you smoking? You’re not supposed to be smoking!”
Nguyen responded by again accusing her of physical contact. “Yes, but she put her hands on me. I have a lawyer. I am a lawyer,” he claimed.
He continued filming, at one point offering the attendant a choice: “Do you want me to release this or do you want to say sorry to me right now?”
She eventually apologized, but Nguyen kept insisting she had assaulted him.
American Airlines later confirmed Nguyen was met by police at San Francisco International Airport and escorted from the concourse for disruptive behavior.
