A Man Strangled a Woman On a Flight After She Reclined Her Chair A Bit Too Much

ABC 7 - A Southwest Airlines flight landed at San Francisco International Airport five hours late after an incident on board forced the pilot to return to the gate at Los Angeles International Airport. Southwest flight 2010 returned to LAX after the pilot declared an emergency. According to a passenger on the flight, who posted on Instagram, “a man strangled a woman because she tilted her seat back.” The plane was only in the air for 13 minutes. Law enforcement met the plane at the gate and took one person from the flight. The other passengers and crew switched planes and took off for SFO about two hours later, landing at 1:43 a.m. The man removed from the plane was detained and questioned by the FBI. He was eventually released. The FBI says they still have to question some more passengers before deciding if charges will be filed.

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I’m actually shocked they still even allow chairs to recline on airplanes. That they even still have that function. You can’t smoke, you can’t bring a bottled water on board, and you certainly should not be able to recline your chair if someone is behind you. Anything more than 6 inches of recline and you’re basically sitting on the person’s face, farting in their eyeballs. And it’s always such an awkward situation—you don’t want to tell the person what they can or can’t do with the seat they paid way too much money for, but at the same time, they are all up in your grillspace while you’re just trying to get from point A to point B in peace. Is it worth the potential argument? And of course it’s going to be an argument/problem, because anyone who is a big enough asshole to recline their chair on a plane certainly won’t listen to reason. I’d rather take my chances with Al Queda or a screaming child than deal with a serial seat recliner on a flight. At least you can put a baby in the overhead compartment, assholes who overly-recline their seats you just have to hope die tragically soonafter.