Woman Arrested After Refusing to Wear Mask, Coughing on Passengers
A woman was arrested and is currently under investigation after she was removed from an easyJet flight from Belfast to Edinburgh for refusing to wear a face mask, shouting “everybody dies” and coughing on fellow passengers over the weekend.
According to the Edinburgh News, the unidentified passenger became disruptive while the plane was still grounded in Northern Ireland on Sunday, prompting the crew to notify police.
“Everybody dies, you know that…If it’s from corona or not, everybody dies,” the woman could be heard shouting as she was escorted off of the aircraft. Footage of the incident also appears to show the woman intentionally coughing on passengers as she moves through the aisle.
“Police attended flight EZY481 from Belfast to Edinburgh on October 18 due to a passenger behaving disruptively on board and refusing to wear their face covering,” a spokesperson for the easyJet said in a statement to Fox News.
“In line with EASA (European Union Aviation Safety Agency) guidelines, all passengers are currently required to bring their own face covering for their flight which must be worn during boarding and onboard, except when eating or drinking,” the British low-cost carrier added. “Passengers receive clear communications before they travel and via announcements onboard to ensure they are aware of this requirement for the health and safety of everyone on board. We will not tolerate disruptive behavior towards other passengers and crew.”
A witness said that the flight crew handled the situation as well as they could, accommodating the woman’s request to be sat in a row to herself and politely asking her to wear a face mask before things escalated.
Sunday’s flight is just the latest to be impacted by a disruptive passenger refusing to cover up their face. An elderly woman with lung disease was removed from an Alaska Airlines flight over a mask dispute earlier this month just days after a fight broke out on an Allegiant Air flight because a passenger allegedly refused to wear a mask.