A viral video filmed last week showed a female passenger restrained with duct tape on an American Airlines flight after she allegedly tried opening the aircraft’s front door and later bit a flight attendant.
Filmed on Tuesday during American Airlines Flight 1774, which was traveling from Dallas-Fort Worth, Texas, to Charlotte, N.C., the footage showed an unidentified woman duct-taped to a First Class seat on the flight. The woman had duct tape around her chest and mouth, and was heard screaming “You! You! You!” at fellow passengers as they depart the plane.
Law enforcement and medical personnel were also shown in the video waiting near the door of the plane as the remaining passengers departed after landing.
According to Fox News, the video of the incident was originally posted to the social media platform TikTok by user @lol.ariee, whose account is now unavailable. The user later said the chaos began around an hour into the flight when “all flight attendants were running up and down the aisles, frantically kind of like whispering to each other.”
The TikTok user said flight crew started locking bathrooms and taking bags from overhead bins, but wouldn’t communicate with the passengers what was going on.
“It was just kind of like chaos and no one knows what’s going on,” the @lol.ariee continued.
Eventually, the pilot requested over the intercom that all passengers remain in their seats due to “a bad situation in the plane” but did not provide any additional details, @lol.ariee said.
During the plane’s descent, one of the flight attendants told nearby passengers that a woman “had an outburst” and tried getting off the plane mid-flight.
“She was saying, ‘I need to get off this plane,’ and she went up to the exits and started banging on the doors, saying, ‘You need to let me off this plane!'” @lol.ariee said.
The TikTok user said the woman attacked the flight attendants, biting and spitting at them, which forced the crew to “take her down” and put duct tape over her mouth.
Business Insider reported that the video had been viewed over 4 million times before it was removed.
A representative with American Airlines told Insider in an emailed statement that the erratic passenger “attempted to open the forward boarding door and physically assaulted, bit, and caused injury to a flight attendant.”
“We applaud our crew for their professionalism and quick effort to protect those on board,” the person added.
The TikTok user who captured the incident later said it seemed to be “handled poorly.”
“American Airlines passenger was duct taped to her seat after she tried to open the plane door, then bit a flight attendant,” Mike Sington wrote on Twitter, along with a still from the video.
