From newspaper accounts since 2010 of incidents in which airplane passengers were removed or flights were rerouted in response to passenger behavior. Compiled by Shayla Love and Winston Choi-Schagrin.
An elderly man on a delayed Hong Kong Airlines flight struck a stewardess several times as passengers clapped and cheered.
A woman on a Thai AirAsia flight threw hot water and instant noodles at a flight attendant after being told that she couldn’t be seated with her friends. Her companion yelled that he would “bomb the plane.”
Moments after a Jet Airways flight landed, a passenger opened the emergency exit, jumped to the ground, and walked away.
A Southwest passenger stabbed her snoring neighbor with a pen.
A woman on a British Airways flight from Kingston, Jamaica, to London removed her clothing and began to masturbate.
A Sunwing plane bound for Cuba turned around after two female passengers consumed their duty-free alcohol, smoked cigarettes in the lavatory, and began to physically fight each other.
A passenger on a US Airways flight brought spoiled meat in his carry-on bag. The contents spilled as the flight taxied, causing maggots to fall from the overhead bin onto the heads of travelers below.
During an EasyJet flight from Tel Aviv to London, a passenger took a two-foot-long snake from his luggage and began feeding it.
A man flicked a scorpion that fell on him during an Alaskan Airlines flight onto a woman sitting next to him. The scorpion stung her.
A Middle East Airlines plane turned around mid-flight to retrieve an Iraqi parliament member’s son, who had missed the flight.
An American Airlines plane made an emergency landing after a passenger refused to stop singing “I Will Always Love You.”
