Pilot ‘de-escalated’ fight, Delta decides

Another airline caught in PR nightmare as viral video shows pilot striking woman

A Delta Air Lines pilot hit a passenger as she and two other women fought on the floor of a boarding ramp in Atlanta last week, according to a video released by TMZ.

Although the incident happened April 21, the video rocketed around the internet on Saturday — another heated altercation as airlines are under scrutiny for mistreating people following a United Airlines passenger’s bloody forced removal from a flight earlier this month.

The Delta video, apparently taken using a cellphone, shows three people cursing at each other, then fighting on the Jetway as shocked passengers watch or scramble to get out of the way.

At one point, one of the fighters takes the other woman to the ground, then wraps her legs around her neck and head in an apparent chokehold. That’s when the pilot, clad in his white shirt and pilot’s cap, walks over and tries to intervene. He grabs the woman’s wrist and strikes her, though it’s unclear whether he does it with an open or closed fist.

According to TMZ, the women “had gotten into a skirmish earlier, on the airplane, and they knew each other.”

No one was charged in the incident, including the pilot.

In a statement emailed to The Washington Post, Delta spokesman Brian Kruse said the pilot was trying to de-escalate an ongoing fight.

“We became aware of this incident and a video last week and immediately removed the pilot from duty while we completed a thorough investigation,” Kruse said. “Local law enforcement was called to respond at the time of the incident. The pilot has since been returned to work as our investigation found that his actions de-escalated an altercation between passengers on the Jetway floor during deplaning.”

But Kruse said he wasn’t authorized to give other details, including what airline personnel are instructed to do in those types of situations.

The Delta incident happened less than two weeks after the United passengers’ removal made international headlines.

In another incident April 21, an American Airlines employee was accused of upsetting a woman carrying a baby to the point of tears, then getting involved in a heated exchange with a man who came to her defense.