Two passengers on an Allegiant Air flight from Mesa, Arizona, brawled after one passenger confronted the other for not wearing a mask under his face shield.
Police officers removed 52-year-old James Honaker from the plane when he became “confrontational with a flight attendant when asked multiple times to put a mask on.”
When one passenger in front of him asked him to get off the plane so the flight could proceed, Honaker replied, “Mind your own (expletive) business.”
As Honaker grabbed his backpack to exit his row, he reportedly elbowed the other passenger in the head while accusing him of getting him kicked off the plane.
From there, the two began exchanging blows.
“You could just feel that something physical was going to start happening,” said Rylie Lansford, a passenger on the plane that was sitting one row in front of Honaker.
Lansford said a flight attendant confronted Honaker while another passenger in her row yelled, “It’s called COVID.” She described the other passenger as distressed, having indicated he was on his way to visit his mother in hospice.
Lansford jumped out of her seat to film the incident, later posting it to her Instagram.
“He has a face shield on so he doesn’t think he needs to wear an additional mask,” Lansford later said in a phone interview.
However, Allegiant Air’s face-covering policy says that masks are to be “of a solid material, fully cover the mouth and nose, fit snugly against the face, and be secured under the chin.”
The airline said that “face shields may be worn in addition to a face covering, but not as an alternative.”
“While the passenger was being escorted off the plane, he had an altercation with another passenger. Law enforcement was called to assist,” the airline said in a statement.
Honaker faces a misdemeanor count of disorderly conduct.
