According to authorities and a video of the event, a passenger was removed from O’Hare early Sunday after she threatened to kill a United Airlines flight attendant while flying to Chicago from San Francisco.
In a widely shared TikTok video of the incident, a lady is seen violently threatening a flight attendant while yelling, “I’ll kill you. I’m going to f—ing kill you.
As other airline employees asked the flight attendant to return to her seat for landing, the woman was seen pushing the flight attendant further down the aisle.
Officers brought the passenger into custody at the O’Hare airport gate at 6 a.m. Sunday due to a “disturbance that had happened on a plane,” according to police. According to authorities, three persons were admitted to a hospital for observation, and the FBI is still conducting an investigation.
A spokeswoman for United Airlines said there were no significant injuries reported.
The United spokeswoman said in an email that “a disruptive passenger on a flight from San Francisco to Chicago was removed by law police upon arrival on Sunday, and one member of the flight attendant crew was transported to a hospital for examination.” We appreciate our crew’s professionalism in handling this trying scenario and for prioritizing the security of our team members and consumers.
The passenger who originally shared the argument later claimed on TikTok that the woman was screaming nonsense the entire time and that “Jesus Christ our savior was going to save us.” The flight attendants told the woman to sit back down when she rose to use the restroom while the plane was about to land, the passenger claimed. That’s when the passenger began recording, she claims.
At a news conference last week at Midway Airport, airline personnel urged for improved worker safeguards in the wake of an increase in aggressive and unruly passengers.
According to the Federal Aviation Administration, 5,981 cases involving unruly passengers and violence against aviation employees were registered in 2021. In 2022, there have been more than 2,000 reported events.
