Video shows passenger attacking American Airlines flight attendant

LOS ANGELES — A shocking video posted to social media shows a passenger attacking a flight attendant while the plane was in the air.

>> Read more trending news

Police arrested the man seen in the video after the flight, which took off from Mexico, landed in Los Angeles on Wednesday, KABC reported.

In a video posted on Twitter, a passenger can be seen walking down the aisle of the plane and hitting the flight attendant in the back of the head.

Barrie Livingstone, one of the people who recorded video of the attack, told KTLA that the incident started when the passenger was told he could not use the bathroom in the front of the plane because he was not flying in first class.

“Once he started screaming at him, the flight attendant just turned around and I think he was going to go and do something,” Livingstone told KTLA. “But as he turned and walked away, the guy jumped out of his seat, bolted down the (aisle), and punched him in the back. It was totally unprovoked.”

Passengers on board helped the flight crew restrain the passenger. A second video shared on Twitter appears to show the same man who assaulted the flight attendant being put into makeshift handcuffs by a different flight attendant.

“A female flight attendant grabbed some restraints and her and I went back there and I just told him, ‘We’re going to put these on you,’” Donald Hoover, one of the passengers, told KNBC. “And he just put his hands up and let us do it.”

“It felt like you were very helpless and then every 10 minutes … (the passenger) would just lash out and start screaming and shouting about the messiah and feeling misunderstood,” Livingstone told KTLA.

The FBI told KNBC that it had opened an investigation into what happened on the plane. The passenger was not identified.

In a statement to KTLA, the airline said: “Acts of violence against our team members are not tolerated by American Airlines. The individual involved in this incident will never be allowed to travel with us in the future, and we will work closely with law enforcement in their investigation.”

©2022 Cox Media Group