London-bound American Airlines flight FORCED to turn back midway due to unmasked flyer
An airplane taking off from Miami to reach London had covered over 50 per cent of the distance when it was forced to turn around mid-flight owing to the actions of a female passenger. Reportedly, the woman onboard refused all requests to mask up, as stated by officials.
American Airlines' Flight 38 had to cancel its planned trip to London and turn back after an hour and a half of flying. The plane was flying over the Atlantic Ocean on Wednesday, January 19 at around 8 pm, when it aborted the journey to London. The spokeswoman of the airline Laura Masvidal confirmed the incident to The Post.
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Explaining the cancelation of the flight, Masvidal said that a disruptive female passenger was refusing to comply with the federal mask mandate issued in the interest of public safety amidst the Covid pandemic. That's why Boeing 777 had to unwillingly turn and land back at Miami International Airport. "The flight landed safely at MIA where local law enforcement met the aircraft. We thank our crew for their professionalism and apologize to our customers for the inconvenience," she said.
The unnamed maskless passenger was described to be in her 40s. She was escorted off the plane. However, this rule-breaker was not charged by the police. A source told CBS4 News that the passenger may have been intoxicated. Travel Editor to CBS, Peter Greenberg then said, "As long as they are not counting the number of people getting on planes already drunk, because so many of these cases involve alcohol consumption prior to boarding the plane – if they don’t address that this could be the new normal for the rest of the year."
It was further reported that the authorities aborted the flight because they did not want passengers to fly with people who are disruptive and non-compliant. One passenger said, "We weren’t given any instructions, just told that we had to go back and now we can’t get our luggage." Another passenger added, "Disappointed. They wouldn’t really say anything and I don’t think they told the flight attendants anything because all they would say is there was an extreme incident and they had to turn around." The passenger said, "They just told us to get off and the police were there."
Despite there being no fault on their part, American Airlines issued an apology statement. "American Airlines flight 38 with service from Miami (MIA) to London (LHR) returned to MIA due to disruptive customer refusing to comply with the federal mask requirement. The flight landed at MIA where local law enforcement met the aircraft. We thank our crew for their professionalism and apologize to our customers for the inconvenience," the airlines said.