LOS ANGELES (WCCO) – A Minnesota man faces assault charges this morning after an incident on a Delta Air Lines flight to Los Angeles.
That man was arrested when the plane touched down last night at LAX. Passengers say he appeared drunk and they had to restrain him.
The last hour and 20 minutes of Delta flight 2321 from Minnesota to Los Angeles had passengers and crew on edge, as Chaves reportedly got out of control.
Ed Barrera, who shot video of the incident on his iPhone, says things went sour when a flight attendant went to check up on the inebriated passenger.
“There was a little bit of a scuffle,” said Barrera. “When the flight attendant walked back up he was bleeding from the nose, so he had been scratched up. At that point I saw a couple of guys on the flight that had jumped on him and tried to restrain him.”
The FBI identified the passenger as Allen Chaves and said he was from Minnesota. Apparently the big concern aboard the full flight was that Chaves was seated in an exit row and his behavior was only getting worse.
“It was pretty crazy because you never know what’s going to happen, especially someone sitting in an exit row and gets a little crazy. Especially with everything that’s happened, it’s always a concern,” said Barrera. “I think there were some people that were concerned. There were a couple of guys that were standing over him.”
Barrera says four other passengers restrained Chaves for the rest of the flight.
“Guy was pretty much saying, ‘I’m being held, I’m being kidnapped,’ that kind of thing. So he was pretty drunk,” said Barrera. “And they just held him down ’til the end of the flight.”
When the plane landed, Chavez was escorted out and it was clear he didn’t want to go.
“He was unwilling to leave so they literally had to drag him out of the plane, he kept holding onto the seats,” said Barrera.
When Chaves was off the plane, passengers clapped and cheered — all except for Chaves. He now faces one misdemeanor charge of assault.
