U.S. track and field star Sha’Carri Richardson was kicked off a flight after she had an argument with a flight attendant.
The 22-year-old athlete detailed the story on her Instagram, explaining how a male flight attendant asked her to get off her phone, to which she obliged. After informing him she didn’t like his tone, the situation quickly escalated and she was removed from the aircraft.
“Following that while standing in front of me doing the safety protocols he continued to lean over to look at my phone,” Richardson stated, in addition to tagging American Airlines in the Instagram story. “He asked to see that my phones were in airplane mode at this point. He demanded that I show him. Which I did in front of him.”
During this incident, the track star wanted to film her traveling. Taking out her phone to tape a part of the plane ride, the flight attendant asked her to stop filming him.
“I’m recording me but you jumped in my video so I caught you because you jumped in my video,” Richardson can be heard saying. She proceeds to tell the flight attendant, “You’re harassing me at this point so I think you should stop, I think you should stop.”
He tells Richardson again to stop recording, but the athlete responds, “No I’m not going to stop recording because I was making a video to myself.”
What do American Airlines passengers think of the Sha’carri Richardson incident?
Although no one knows what happened prior to the recording, the video depicts loud commotion erupting from the plane and the track star asking her fellow passengers what they thought of the incident. “Y’all see him right? Y’all see him right? Tell him to stop. If you do not know what’s going on, do not yell at me.”
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As time continued, both passengers, Richardson, and the pilot grew restless. In fact, the captain of the flight requested that the 22-year-old be removed from the flight. “He’s not being removed after being unprofessional and having his hand in my face…So I’m being removed off the plane without even being explained why?” she questions.
Richardson gathered her items after the altercation and exited the plane, which prompted her fellow travelers to celebrate by clapping. Following the incident, she took to Instagram and posted another video on Instagram that explained her side of the story. She shared, “I definitely would have listened to instructions but the way he was talking to me was very unprofessional, and then his hands were all in my face.”
American Airlines issued a statement after the ordeal went down and expressed the sentiments, “We accommodated the customer on a later flight and a member of our team has reached out to learn more.”
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