Fistfight breaks out onboard Japanese airline
Image: YouTube/Mariano Diaz
Another violent encounter has been documented aboard a commercial flight, but this time, the fight broke out between passengers.
International Business Times reports that a drunk American passenger was asked to disembark from a plane after starting a fist-fight with another passenger.
The flight going to Los Angeles was preparing to take off from Narita Airport when a man wearing a ripped Hawaiian shirt started throwing punches at a passenger wearing a black T-shirt.
Photographer Corey Hour, who was on the same flight, managed to capture the scene on video and posted it on Twitter. Unfortunately, the tweet has already been removed. Copies of the video have spread to other platforms like YouTube.
The reason for the man’s outburst is unknown, but Hour heard him yelling at one point, “You think I’m crazy? What about the government?”
After a brief exchange of punches with the other passenger, the man in the Hawaiian shirt was led away by flight attendants. He later came stomping back for round two with the passenger in black T-shirt only to get a solid punch in the face. Flight attendants again tried to restrain him.
Hour said that the fight ended when he confronted the angry passenger.
“I told him to leave and squared up with him, he backed down [and] left,” Hour wrote on Twitter.
The passenger was identified as a 44-year-old American. He was charged with assault.
Prior to the brawl, the passenger was deemed a potential safety threat after boarding the flight drunk. He was asked to leave but resisted and allegedly hit another passenger, as well as choked one of the male airline employees.
Hour commended the flight staff on Twitter with the way they handled the incident. He tweeted, “They handled the situation with grace and respect. They did the best they could to diffuse the situation.” Alfred Bayle/JB
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