This grounded passenger was ready to throw down.
A man who had been behaving erratically on a Cincinnati-bound flight departing from Charlotte Douglas International Airport in North Carolina on Monday was caught on video taking off his shirt and preparing to fight several airport employees on the tarmac.
“He acts like he wants to fight, or something,” one woman said on the video while watching the wild scene unfold. “Well, that ain’t gonna get him back on, I’ll tell you that.”
The passenger, who was not identified, then stood in front of airport employees without a shirt before throwing down his belongings and apparently threatening to attack them. He then picked up his backpack and shirt before walking away. Another video posted on Twitter showed the man striking one of the airport employees in the head with a traffic baton.
A passenger on the flight, Kelly Smekens, told Storyful that the incident delayed American Airlines flight number 5466 for nearly 40 minutes.
Katie Cody, a spokeswoman for American Airlines, confirmed that a “disruptive passenger” was removed from the flight and had been acting erratically at the gate.
“We did have a disruptive passenger on that flight and we requested law enforcement assistance,” Cody told The Post. “It’s an active investigation, so there’s not a whole lot I can say about it.”
Cody said officers from the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department responded to the scene and took the man into custody. Messages seeking additional information from police were not immediately returned.