AA Flight attendant grounded after incident

Attendant allegedly almost struck infant with baby stroller

DALLAS — American Airlines grounded a flight attendant after a video posted to Facebook showed an escalating confrontation with passengers Friday night on a flight from San Francisco to Dallas.

The video, posted by passenger Surain Adyanthaya, shows a woman passenger holding a baby and crying near the plane’s entrance. According to Adyanthaya’s post, the confrontation started when an “AA Flight attendant violently took a stroller from a lady with her baby on my flight, hitting her and just missing the baby. Then he tried to fight a passenger who stood up for her.”

On the video, the flight attendant is seen challenging another passenger who came to the woman’s defense.

Olivia Morgan was standing near the door of the plane with her 8-year-old daughter waiting to board when she saw the altercation, she told a Los Angeles television station.

“The flight attendant wrestled the stroller away from the woman, who was sobbing, holding one baby with the second baby in a car seat on the ground next to her,” she said.

The male flight attendant was “violent” when he took the metal stroller away from the mother and nearly hit the baby with the stroller, she said.

“He stormed by me with the stroller and I said something like, ‘What are you doing? You almost hit that baby!’ and he yelled at me to ‘stay out of it’ just like he does in the video,” she said.

The woman told Morgan that a female flight attendant said she could look for a place to store the stroller because it folds up, but if there was no space she would have to check it at the gate, KTLA-TV reported.

“She was looking for space when the male attendant tried to take it away from her … and she told him the other attendant told her it was OK to look,” Morgan said.

In the video, passenger Tony Fierro says, “I’m not going to sit here and watch this” and asks for the flight attendant’s name. The situation escalates as Fierro tells the attendant, “Hey bud, you do that to me and I’ll knock you flat.”

The two confront each other after the flight attendant says, “You stay out of this.” He also challenges Fierro: “Hit me.”

American Airlines said in a statement that the flight attendant was suspended while the airline investigates the confrontation.

Twelve days earlier, United Airlines sparked a national debate over passenger treatment when it called Chicago airport police to forcibly remove a passenger from a plane to make room for a traveling flight crew.

The passenger, David Dao, pulled from his seat and dragged off the plane. Three officers were put on leave after the incident.