NYC-to-Las Vegas Flight Diverted Over Unruly Man

A hollering, agitated passenger who ignored pleas to calm down spurred a pilot to divert a New York-to-Las Vegas JetBlue plane to Detroit over the weekend.

Flight 211 was headed west from JFK Airport when the passenger became unruly, and the captain decided to land in Detroit at around 8:30 a.m. Saturday.

“All of a sudden, this guy who was sleeping just woke up out of nowhere and started flipping out,” Mark Verity told ABC.

Passenger video shows a man in a window seat standing, gesticulating and shouting, his remarks unclear. “Dad, stop it!” a female voice exclaims as the man lurches toward the aisle, where flight attendants subdued him.

The episode unfolded five days after a woman was nearly removed from a JetBlue flight after her 3-year-old daughter soiled her seat because the flight crew wouldn’t let her use the facilities while on the tarmac in New York.

The woman, Jennifer Deveraux, said that when she got up to clean the seat, the flight attendant reported her to the pilot, who announced that the Boston-bound plane was returning to the gate to bring an out-of-order passenger to security officials. She said she ultimately was allowed to stay aboard.

JetBlue later apologized, said employees would undergo sensitivity training, offered her a full credit and $5,000 to the charity of her choice.

This article appeared in print on page 9 of the June 16th, 2014 edition of Hamodia.