- A passenger was removed from a flight after getting into an argument about the Cincinnati Bengals NFL team.
- In a video, the unruly passenger can be seen being put in a chokehold by another passenger.
- The man claims that he was “the only Bengals fan” as he is kicked off the plane.
A video shows an airplane passenger being put in a chokehold and removed from a flight in Cleveland after getting into an argument about the Cincinnati Bengals NFL team.
The Frontier Airlines flight was waiting to depart for Phoenix when two passengers started to argue about the Bengals being in the Super Bowl on Sunday, witnesses told Fox 8.
An airline employee intervened and told one of the men he had too much to drink and asked him to exit the plane, at which point the man lunged at the employee, according to witnesses.
In the video, the unruly Bengals fan can be seen being put into a chokehold by another passenger. Others tell the passenger to release the man, which he eventually does.
As the passenger is escorted off the plane, he can be heard dropping expletives and claiming to be “the only Bengals fan.”
“I was a Bengals fan, I was the only Bengals fan. I’m not a bad person, bro, I drank a little too much, and one guy back there had a problem that I was drinking too much,” he says in the video.
Jason Brake, the passenger who recorded the video, told Fox 8 that the Bengals fan possibly did have too much to drink, but that the other passenger escalated the situation by putting him in a chokehold.
“When I watched that, I was like, ‘OK, this guy is assaulting somebody that they’re trying to remove from the plane,'” Brake told the outlet.
“The guy is not qualified to handle that situation and it could have made it worse, and you’ve got all these people that are stuck there and there’s going to be a stampede to try to get out of a little small door.”
Brake said that the captain and crew suggested that the unruly passenger had brought his own alcohol onto the flight and drunk it on board.
Cleveland police have been sent the video, and charges against the unidentified man are pending, Fox 8 reported.
A Frontier spokesperson told Fox 8 in a statement: “As Flight 2415 scheduled from Cleveland to Phoenix on February 9 was at the gate prior to takeoff, a passenger was behaving disruptively and was asked to exit the aircraft by a gate agent.”
“The passenger became increasingly aggressive, physically assaulting the gate agent. The passenger was subsequently arrested by local enforcement and has been permanently placed on our Prevent Departure list.”
