An airplane on its way from Miami to London turned around mid-flight and went back to Florida after a woman in first class refused to mask up, officials said.
American Airlines flight 38 aborted its planned international trip as it flew above the Atlantic Ocean about an hour-and-a-half after taking off on Wednesday just before 8 p.m., according to reports and flight tracking site Flightaware.
Airline spokeswoman Laura Masvidal confirmed the incident in a statement to The Post, saying a “disruptive customer refusing to comply with the federal mask mandate” was the reason the Boeing 777 landed back at Miami International Airport.
Steve Freeman, the passenger who was sitting in front of the maskless passenger, claims the woman had been drinking heavily and was abusive towards the flight crew before the flight got turned around.
“There was a lot of drinking involved and I was nervous. She sat behind us in first class — she was a first-class passenger and was extremely abusive to the stewards,” Freeman told Local 10.
“I could see the writing on the wall — they gave her a lot of warnings, so we were kind of ready for it.”
He said the crew gave the woman multiple masks to try, but she complained about each one.
Freeman claimed the decision to turn the plane around was to do with how abusive the woman allegedly was – and not because she refused to wear a mask.
The maskless passenger, described as in her 40s, was escorted off the plane but not charged by police, according to CBS Miami.
But she was put on the American Airline’s internal no-fly list pending further investigation, according to the company’s spokesperson.
The 129 passengers and 14 crew members on the plane were temporarily stranded back in the US, leaving some passengers scrambling and confused when they returned to the airport.
Airlines so far this year have already reported 151 incidents with unruly passengers, including 92 that were mask-related, according to Federal Aviation Administration data. Of those, 32 have sparked investigations and four cases have seen enforcement action initiated, the data show.
Last year there were 5,981 unruly passenger incidents, with a whopping 4,290 that were mask-related, according to the FAA.
With Post wires