United Airlines has confirmed that one of its flight attendants on an overnight red-eye flight from San Francisco to Chicago O’Hare had to be taken to the hospital following an incident involving a disruptive passenger early on Sunday morning.
United flight UA476 was coming into land at just before 6 am when flight attendants became involved in an altercation with a female passenger who was standing up in the aisle and refusing to take her seat for landing.
In video footage taken by passenger Peter Kondelis, the woman can be seen standing in the aisle of the Boeing 777-200 aircraft holding a young child in her arms while a group of flight attendants attempt to persuade her to take her seat in preparation for landing.
In the roughly 14-second clip, the woman appears to scream at the flight attendants before shouting “where is it” and then telling one of the crew members to “f**k off”.
An unidentified crew member then appears to repeatedly shout: “Sarah, step back”. In the background, another crew member appears to be racing to the scene with what could be a restraint kit.
A Twitter account that follows Chicago emergency service radio traffic reported that a total of four ambulances were requested to meet the aircraft. One was for the flight attendant, the second was for the mother, the third for the child and the fourth for a male who separately suffered a medical emergency.
In a statement, United Airlines said: “A disruptive customer on a flight from San Francisco to Chicago was removed by law enforcement upon landing on Sunday, and one member of the flight attendant crew was taken to a hospital for evaluation.”
“We’re grateful to our crew for handling this difficult situation with professionalism and for putting the safety of our team and our customers first.”
The FBI is said to be leading the investigation.
Was this situation a result of the mother trying to rush her child to use (and/or return from) the lavatory toilet while the seatbelt sign was on for the descending/landing plane?