A Southwest 737 at LaGuardia Airport in N.Y.
A Southwest Airlines flight from Baltimore to Fort Lauderdale Tuesday experienced turbulence of a different kind when a passenger completely lost his composure over a baby that was crying and was forced to divert to Orlando.
The plane was forced to circle for almost an hour over the Atlantic due to weather and that’s where things began to melt down.
One passenger recorded the entire scene on video.
“I’m not screaming,” the man yelled. “You want me to scream, you want me scream? I’ll [expletive] scream. Pleaåse stop the baby from [expletive] crying. Please.”
“I paid for a ticket to have a [expletive] comfortable flight,” the man said.
The man yelled angrily at anyone who approached him.
Flight attendants and other officials tried to diffuse the situation, but the man said he was triggered by the baby’s cries.
“Can you calm the child down, please?” he said to cabin crew. “I had headphones on, I was sleeping. Why is the baby yelling?”
The video shows a female passenger sitting next to him trying to calm him down, albeit to no avail as did several members of cabin crew, apparently off camera.
“We are in an [expletive] tin can with a baby in the [expletive] echo-chamber, and you want to talk to me about being [expletive] OK?” he said in another video clip.
Officials offered the male passenger the option of deplaning once the aircraft landed in Orlando but he refused, at which point the airline was forced to tell everyone on the flight to exit the aircraft, so that the passenger could be forcibly removed afterwards.
The airline declined to comment on the specifics of the incident but issued an apology to passengers on the ill-fated voyage.
“We commend our crew for exhibiting outstanding professionalism while handling a challenging situation, and we offer our apologies to the other customers onboard who had to experience such unacceptable behavior,” the airline said in a statement.
(Photo: Accura Media Group)
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