Fight breaks out on plane as Delta passengers face seven-hour delay

Narita, Japan - June 5, 2011: A Boeing 767 registered to Delta Airlines is parked at a gate while other jets taxi in the background at Narita International Airport, an airport serving the greater Tokyo area of Japan. Narita handles the majority of international passenger traffic to and from Japan, and is also a major connecting point for air traffic between Asia and the Americas.
By Alexandra Coulton


Passengers have posted videos to Twitter of chaotic scenes as police boarded a flight to stop passengers brawling after facing a seven-hour flight delay.

The flight was scheduled to leave New York’s John F. Kennedy Airport on Thursday at 3.52pm but didn’t take off until 11.10pm, according to flight data.

Passengers onboard the Airbus A320 were, as you may imagine, not impressed.

“A small sample of the increasing chaos happening right now aboard Miami -bound Delta 2385. It’s sitting on the tarmac at JFK for 8hrs now (!)… passengers kept onboard with no clear info and now armed officers responding to a fight… @Delta? Response?” Tweeted Glenna Milberg, a Miami local news anchor.

Milberg’s tweet was accompanied by a video showing officers boarding the plane and asking a flight attendant which two passengers were fighting and whether or not the pilot wanted the passengers removed.

JFK Airport said in response to the tweet the Port Authority Police and the airline were on the scene mitigating the situation.

Twitter user Juan Andres Ahmad also posted a video from the flight showing passengers standing up and discussing the situation.

“8 HOURS and counting. Captain had “no idea” where the ground crew was. Parked in a “remote gate” in JFK. No food, no water. A fight broke out, police was called. A NIGHTMARE,” Ahmad said.

“There are people fighting each other and it’s gotten both verbal and physical. Police are on the plane! Complete chaos!” Ahmad wrote in a second tweet.

Another user described the situation as “miserable” and claimed the delay went from being weather-related to an air traffic delay to a refuelling delay.

“It’s miserable. Started as a weather delay, then turned into an air traffic delay, then became a refuelling delay. Flight attendants have admitted this is chaos and they know nothing. Claimed the gate crew ditched us at one point,” user Jesse Greshin said.

The flight, which was originally scheduled to land in Miami at 7.14pm, arrived seven hours later at 2:28am according to Business Insider.

Travel Weekly has approached Delta Airlines for comment.

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