Argument over elbow placement forces plane back to gate, gets 2 men booted: report
Joshua Bote - SFGATE
Two passengers on a flight departing from San Francisco International Airport were escorted off the plane after an alleged disagreement over armrests devolved into fighting.
The incident took place on a United Airlines flight Friday at around 1:30 p.m., and was initially shared on Twitter by Google product director Jack Krawczyk, who said this incident took place on his “first flight in 15 months.” A United spokeswoman told SFGATE that the incident took place right before takeoff.
The flight was headed to Las Vegas.
“Of course we were rerouted back to the gate because two passengers got into a physical altercation over elbow placement upon arm rests,” he said in a tweet. (Krawczyk did not respond to a request for comment from SFGATE.)
A San Francisco police spokesman told SFGATE that both men — who were not identified by police — were detained when an officer arrived on the scene after the plane returned to the gate.
Neither were injured and neither sought to “pursue further police action,” said police, who released the two at the end of the investigation. But they were not allowed to rejoin the flight.
This incident comes as airlines and flight attendants endure a wave of nasty behavior as travel restrictions loosen. The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) recently announced penalties up to $15,500 for four passengers who harassed or ignored flight attendants.
The agency also noted that nearly three-fourths of FAA “unruly behavior” reports were of passengers who refused to wear masks on flights.
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Originally Posted by PorkChopSandwiches
