Plane is diverted after passenger goes on ‘racist rant’ and calls flight attendant a ‘fat a**’ before being arrested and kicked off
Footage posted online appears to show the unruly passenger shouting at a female air attendant who tried to calm him down
A MAN has been arrested after an alleged racist rant onboard a United Airlines flight from Sydney to San Francisco - which caused the plane to be diverted.
The New Year's Day flight had to make an unscheduled stop in Auckland after an unidentified US passenger allegedly threw a fit when two other passengers seated on either side started talking over him.
He apparently started verbally abusing the two passengers, believed to be of Indian or Pakistani decent, then yelled at staff for making him sit between them.
A video posted online appears to show the unruly passenger shouting at a female air attendant who tried to calm him down.
Anjou Ahlborn Kay, a passenger, shared the footage on Facebook where she described the man as "bigoted" and "disturbing".
In the clip, the man can be heard saying: "If you guys treat people right on these things, you see two last names the same don't put someone else in the middle of them.
The attendant asks him to calm down, but the frustrated man replies: "I'm perfectly calm. I'm not yelling, you want to hear me f*****g yelling?"
"Do you know how cool it would be to have the aeroplane turned around because of me? You are going to do that? You do that? I'm being so impolite aren't I? Fat **s".
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A witness told the : "The rant progressed from cursing Indians to Asians to Muslims to non-whites in general and calling flight crew f****** and fat asses."
"He was subdued after the pilot announced the diversion to Auckland."
Immigration New Zealand confirmed the 42-year-old passenger was an American national.
National border manager Senta Jehle said: "He was refused entry to New Zealand as he did not meet entry and border requirements.
"He is now in police custody while arrangements are made for him to board a flight back to the United States."
United Airlines spokeswoman Erin Benson said the UH870 flight had to be diverted after the passenger allegedly failed to listen to crew instructions.
"Authorities boarded the aircraft when it landed and the passenger was removed from the aircraft."
Benson said all 252 passengers were put up in hotels overnight because of the disruption.
Anjou Ahlborn Kay's full Facebook post:
"Originally on a nonstop flight from SYD (Sydney) to SFO (San Francisco) has landed us overnight in AUK (New Zealand). A bigoted passenger screamed racist, homophobic, misogynistic, disturbing words to passengers and crew, then called the flight attendants every offensive thing in the book. He continued to pick several separate fights with the crew and passengers and had us all disturbed. "Kudos to the flight attendants who remained calm but really sucks this one idiot has grounded us. Luckily made friends with my amazing seat mates as we dealt with the last 24 hours. Welcome to 2017. #UA870."
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