An American Airlines flight was forced to divert on Monday night due to a ‘drunk’ and belligerent passenger who used the overhead baggage compartment to do pull-ups and verbally abused a flight attendant.
Flight 2763 left Phoenix, Arizona, for Boston at 3.30pm local time. It was due to land in Boston at around 10.30pm but had to stop and let the man off in Kansas City, Missouri.
According to other passengers, the man, who has not been named, boarded the plane with a woman and two dogs.
He appeared to be drunk and was ‘stumbling’ on the aircraft, according to other passengers.
American Airlines flight 2763 diverted on Monday night because of an ‘unruly’ and ‘drunk’ man who started doing pull-ups on the overhead baggage compartment and abusing flight attendants. He has not been named
American Airlines insists that the man was not drunk when he boarded the plane.
During the flight, the man got out of his seat and did pull-ups from the overhead baggage compartment.
When a flight attendant approached him and told him to sit down, he became aggressive and shouted at her, they said.
‘The flight attendant probably asked him three or four times to sit down and he refused to sit down and then he really got verbally abusive with her, starting calling her names,’ passenger David Markoski told CBS Boston.
The flight left Phoenix on Tuesday at 3.30pm local time and had to stop half-way through in Kansas City, Missouri, to let the man off. It was on the ground for around an hour then took off again for Boston and arrived on Tuesday at 1am local time
The man called her ‘names’, they added, but they would not say what those names were.
At Kansas City, security guards hauled him off the plane. His companion and their two dogs disembarked with him.
He was escorted off premises but was not charged.
American Airlines confirmed the diversion and said it was due to the man being ‘unruly’ but they would not share further details of the incident.
The plane eventually arrived in Boston just after 1am on Tuesday morning.