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| Photo: A passenger on board the aircraft recorded the dispute before the American Airlines flight took off. (Facebook: Surain Adyanthaya) |
American Airlines has suspended an employee after a video showed an
altercation on one of its planes involving crew, several passengers and a
crying woman carrying a young child.
An American Airlines employee violently took a stroller from the woman,
hitting her with it and just missing her child, Facebook user Surain
Adyanthaya said in a post accompanying the video he put on the site on Friday.
American Airlines said it was investigating the incident that
happened before Friday's Flight 591 from San Francisco to Dallas took
off, airline spokeswoman Leslie Scott said.
The incident started over a dispute as to whether the woman could bring her stroller on the flight, Ms Scott said.
Less than two weeks ago, 69-year-old doctor David Dao was hospitalised after Chicago aviation police dragged him from a United Airlines plane sparking international outrage and a public relations nightmare for the carrier.
The United Airlines removed him from the plane because the flight was overbooked.
In footage of the latest incident, the woman with the child can be heard asking flight attendants for the stroller.
A
male passenger then walks towards the front of the plane and demands
from the airline crew the name of the employee who took the stroller
before he returns to his seat.
Moments later, another American
Airlines employee, who Ms Scott said was a flight attendant, enters the
plane and the male passenger confronts him.
"You do that to me and I'll knock you flat," the passenger can be heard saying to the flight attendant.
The two then confront each other in the aisle of the plane and the employee can be heard challenging the passenger to hit him.
The passenger eventually returns to his seat and the flight attendant leaves the plane.
"We
are deeply sorry for the pain we have caused this passenger and her
family and to any other customers affected by the incident," the airline
said in a statement.
The woman and her family were being upgraded to first class for the remainder of their international trip, it said.
Mr Adyanthaya has not immediately respond to a request for comment.
