An American Airlines flight from Milwaukee to Dallas Fort Worth was forced to make an emergency diversion to Tulsa on Tuesday evening after a passenger sitting in First Class allegedly went crazy at a flight attendant when she told him to stop vaping.
American Airlines flight AA1733 departed Milwaukee at around 5:30 pm on Tuesday but just over an hour into the two hour, the Airbus A320 veered off course and made its way to Tulsa due to the unruly passenger.
Initial reports claim the passenger was openly vaping in his seat in full view of his seatmates, which prompted a flight attendant to warn him to stop, pointing out that vaping onboard a commercial aircraft was a violation of federal regulations.
The warning allegedly antagonized the passenger, who accused the flight attendant of making false allegations against him before chasing the crew member into the forward gallery.
At this point, other passengers reportedly jumped up from their seats to protect the flight attendant, and the pilots decided to make an emergency diversion to Oklahoma, where the perpetrator could be deplaned.
The good news for all the other passengers onboard, the aircraft was able to depart Tulsa at around 8 pm, and it made it to DFW with a delay of little more than an hour.
Thankfully, the number of unruly passenger incidents onboard U.S. flights has dipped massively compared to during the pandemic when there was a big spike that prompted the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to start pursuing big civil penalities against perpetrators.
Although the number of incidents is on the way down, the FAA is still taking a tough stance against unruly passengers and last month the agency said that it had referred 43 more unruly passengers to the FBI for criminal investigation.
Since late 2021, the FAA has now referred more than 300 of the most serious cases to the FBI for further investigation and potential criminal charges.
As well as criminal charges, the FAA also has the power to slap disruptive passengers with fines of up to $37,000. The most heft fines are reserved for passengers who assault, threaten, intimidate, or interfere with airline crewmembers.
American Airlines did not immediately respond to a request for comment in relation to the latest incident.
This was more than a slight delay, the diversion to Tulsa due to the passenger vaping, threatening crew and passengers, caused many of the other passengers to miss connections in Dallas and at least 8 were re-booked to a morning flight. Meaning the delay turned into more than 12 hours delay and the need for an overnight hotel stay away from home. The safety issues this passenger caused is much greater than just vaping and he was booked by the Tulsa County jail but released the next morning on $600 bond, hours before the other delayed passengers were even able to board flights to get home….
Some people feel entitled to do whatever they want to do. Any passenger who put another in danger should pay the price for their ignorance.