A woman who was duct-taped to her seat aboard an American Airlines plane after she allegedly attacked the crew and tried to open the door midflight faces a whopping $81,950 fine — the largest handed out by the Federal Aviation Administration to date.
The passenger took off to viral video infamy when she was captured bound to her seat on Flight 1774 from Dallas to Charlotte, North Carolina, on July 6, 2021. She could be heard screaming, “You! You! You!” at passengers filing past her as flight attendants calmly nodded their goodbyes, according to the footage posted by TikTok user @lol.ariee.
During the flight, which had been delayed by about three hours, chaos erupted as attendants scurried about, locking bathroom doors and grabbing bags from overhead bins before the pilot asked passengers to remain seated. Right before landing, a crew member said that the woman “had an outburst and like, had the urge to get off the plane,” the TikTok user said.
The unhinged traveler then pushed the flight attendant to the side and tried to open the cabin door. She ‘repeatedly’ hit one flight attendant over the head and was quickly restrained in flex cuffs, but still managed to ‘spit at, headbutt, bite and kick’ the crew and other passengers, according to the federal agency.
A since-deleted TikTok video shows the woman restrained to what looks to be a first-class window seat with her mouth and torso wrapped in grey duct tape. She was taken to the hospital for an evaluation after the flight landed in Charlotte.
The FAA has seen a steep rise in ‘unruly passengers’ since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic. The agency initiated 1,099 investigation last year, up from 183 in 2020 and 146 in 2019.
Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg warned passengers not to be ‘jerks’ during an appearance on The View on Friday before the fine was announced. ‘Look. It’s one thing to be grumpy on a flight. I feel that way sometimes,’ Secretary Buttigieg said Friday. ‘But yeah, it’s another thing to endanger flight crews and to endanger fellow passengers. We have no tolerance for that.’
Two flight attendants tried to restrain the woman aboard the July 6 flight. The FAA says she ‘repeatedly’ hit one of them on the head and proceeded to bite, headbutt, and kick the crew and other passengers.
