No one ever wants to get caught on a delayed or diverted flight over a passenger meltdown and altercation.
But a set of flyers found themselves on that very flight when a fellow passenger boarded their plane drunk, then started yelling racial slurs and waving a skateboard at the cabin crew.
The disruption happened on a Breeze Airways flight that took off from Norfolk, Virginia, and was bound for Los Angeles on August 13.
The flight ended up landing in Grand Junction, Colorado, because of an “unruly passenger,” according to police.
Grand Junction Police said they were called to the Grand Junction Airport at 11:15 p.m., where they arrested 46-year-old David Leroy Carter, Jr.
According to local law enforcement, airline staff members had to place Carter in restraints during his rowdy disruption on the flight, but he broke free twice. Some passengers even helped flight attendants restrain Carter.
In an air traffic control recording obtained by KABC, crew members are heard saying, “They’re calling it a level four disturbance now. They say they had him restrained. He broke out, and there’s passengers holding him down now.”
One video of the incident shows one passenger getting up from his row and physically sitting Carter down in an empty seat after a flight attendant asks for help.
“My son was on there and there were other kids on there, and so I just had to sit him down,” the passenger who goes by Ray told KABC. “Once I heard the flight attendants say ‘Can somebody help me?’ I was just like, I saw black almost, and I just grabbed him and sat him down.”
Ray, who stands 6 feet 6 inches, told local news outlets he played tight end and defensive end in high school.
One passenger said they were amazed by how Ray lifted Carter in the air and “put him down like it was in a car seat.”
“Thank God for linebacker 17C, because he really saved the day,” another fellow flyer said.
Another clip of the incident also shows Carter refusing to comply with cabin crew orders to buckle his seatbelt and talking down to flight attendants, telling one, “It’s your birthday, b****,” and “You suck at your job.”
One passenger is also seen reprimanding him after he allegedly started saying the N-word.
“Just F-bombs and N-bombs,” one passenger told KNBC of Carter’s language.
“To be honest with you, he was using a lot of racial slurs to the Black folk and the brown folk,” another passenger said. “We were thinking a lot of things.”
A Breeze Airways spokesperson told People magazine that Carter “became physically and verbally threatening to the crew and other guests. The plane was met promptly by local law enforcement officers, who restrained and removed the passenger from the aircraft.”
Police arrested Carter and took him to a county detention facility at the direction of the FBI. Federal officials have not yet said what he’s been charged with.
Authorities said that Carter didn’t physically assault anyone, and no injuries were reported. Breeze Airways said one flight attendant and a passenger were evaluated for minor injuries, according to NBC News.
“That was crazy,” one passenger said. “I didn’t expect that to happen. You never really think that would happen to you until it happens.”
According to the Federal Aviation Administration, there have been 1,007 “unruly passenger” reports made in the U.S. so far in 2025, which is a decrease from previous years. The number was at a record high in 2021, with 5,973 reports. It continued dropping in the years after, to 2,455 in 2022; 2,076 in 2023; and 2,102 in 2024.
Great Job Yasmeen F. & the Team @ Atlanta Black Star Source link for sharing this story.
