A female flier, apparently irate because the phone charger at her airline seat failed to work, caused such a disruption that the captain was forced to make an emergency landing.
The American Airlines flight from Tokyo to Dallas Fort Worth was placed into “Level Three Lockdown” and diverted to Seattle Tacoma Airport after the woman allegedly assaulted a flight attendant and banged on the flight deck door.
This was all because her cell phone would not charge via the outlet at her seat, according to the aviation blog Paddle Your Own Kanoo.
The incident happened on Wednesday, May 19. Waka Suzuki, a Japanese citizen, was connecting through Dallas with her mother en route to Cancun, Mexico where the pair planned to vacation for 10-days.
But in scouring court documents, the blog revealed that Suzuki went ballistic when flight attendants could not figure out why the phone charger at her seat stopped working about four hours into the 11-hour flight.
Suzuki shouted at the flight attendants and became “increasingly hostile and belligerent” toward crew members. At one point she ran up the aisle from her economy seat, pushed a crew member aside and began banging on the cockpit door seeking help in resolving the phone charger issue.
She was eventually restrained with plastic handcuffs, and the pilot diverted the plane to Seattle, where it landed without further disruption.
Suzuki is accused of knowingly and intentionally interfering with flight crew members. The FBI is investigating.