In-Flight Entertainment

“YOU’RE AN INCONSIDERATE, SELF-ABSORBED, THOUGHTLESS PIECE OF SH—”

My attention was instantly drawn in the direction of the shouting.

In my defense, in everyone’s really…. how could it not be?

“AS SOON AS WE STEP OFF THIS PLANE I DON’T WANT TO HEAR FROM YOU EVER AGAIN!”

“Look, I know you can’t help it,” a voice, dripping with sarcasm, coming from the seat a few rows up responded. “But just for once, don’t make a scene…. The people on this plane don’t need to watch your reality tv show.”

That was how it started.

I leaned out from my aisle seat to get a better view of the fireworks as these two, three rows away, started to fire increasingly audible digs at each other over something that the rest of the flight had no understanding of…. although not understanding the situation hardly stopped anyone from taking a side. I mean, since when has understanding the nuance of an issue, or actually being connected to it in some significant way been a requirement for participating in a screaming match? Probably back before the internet, one would assume.

“OH YAAAAA! GO AHEAD. INSULT ME! MAKE IT SOUND LIKE I WANT ATTENTION WHEN I HAVE EVERY RIGHT TO BE FURIOUS. YOU WERE ALL OVER THE WAIT STAFF AT THE HOTEL… THE FLIGHT ATTENDANT…. YOU BELITTLE ME AS THOUGH I’M STUPID. LESS THAN YOU. YOU TREAT ME LIKE I’M INVISIBLE, LIKE MY FEELINGS DON’T MATTER. HELL IF I WASN’T IN BETWEEN YOU TWO —”

At this point I was almost laughing out loud as I filmed the overly exaggerated, arm-flail-criss-cross gestures The Stander was putting on display as they shouted at their partner.

“— YOU’D PROBABLY BE DIGGING YOUR NAILS INTO ‘WINDOW SEAT’ OVER HERE!”

‘Window Seat’ was what they had decided to name the passenger sharing the row with them and their partner I guess. Oh, and they were standing now too. The Stander was up on their feet facing towards the back of the plane as they railed at their partner…. Just in case that wasn’t clear from my nickname.

Even though I couldn’t see him, I could tell that the poor guy in the window seat had slouched down into his deflated, worn out, ‘economy’ chair as far as he could go. He couldn't have made it more obvious to the couple that he was more than mildly uncomfortable with the finger The Stander continued to jab violently in his direction.

“I’m sorry,” The Stander finally added, calming themselves just briefly enough to turn towards ‘Window Seat' and address him directly. “This isn’t about you.”

Ah, another thing that definitely didn’t help this situation was that these two were seated in an 'Emergency Exit' row. It made a standing, face-to-face, or rather toe-to-toe confrontation, as well as what happened next, so much more likely.

I really think that airlines could do a better job of screening people for those seats. Do I really want someone who can barely control themselves over a marital…. Or maybe not marital, but a relationship-al (is that a word?) dispute being the one in charge of my escape after an accident? Who are we all kidding…. Everyone knows that clichéd joke hundreds of comedians have dropped about plane crashes, though maybe none better than Seinfeld speaking to Elaine — “Whatever, if we crash everyone in first class is going to die anyways!” “Yeah, I’m sure you’ll live.”

So a plane accident basically means I’m dead. Still, it would be nice to know that if we happened to be involved in the accident that falls under the 0.00001% chance of survival, I don’t have a psychologically unstable, or physically incapable, or just plain DUMB person in the role of saviour. I don’t know how to really screen for this though…. Without hurting people’s feelings I guess. I mean I could screen for it with a 2-minute conversation to be honest with you. But this is neither here nor there, I’m getting off track and I know we’ve only got a short time.

So, one of the flight attendants tried to calm The Stander by offering them a complimentary drink and explaining that they would look into finding someone who would be willing to switch seats for the remainder of the flight.

The Stander calmly accepted the offer, but remained standing until the attendant returned with a small plastic cup filled with what was, if I was guessing, most likely rum and coke. After taking the drink from the attendant’s hand, The Stander took a sip, inhaled deeply, exhaled slowly, and acknowledged the attendant with a calm “Thank you." After which they proceeded to throw the drink into Sarcasm’s face (yes, that's the partner's nickname now) and smash the cup over the top of their head. Bits of ice and plastic were catapulted into the air along with a great deal of coke, and, assuming this airline is like most others, very little rum. Poor Window Seat must have also caught a good shot of the sticky, soda-based beverage, because I could see a wide spray of it across the plane’s wall above the window.

“ARE YOU KIDDING ME!?” The flight attendant cried in disbelief, having clearly assumed, only moments earlier, that they had single-handedly ended the fiasco which was now disrupting literally everyone’s afternoon on flight MS995.

“Greaaaat Carth. Your maturity and self-control is on display for all to see now. It’s impressive how well you handle adversity.” Sarcasm started in on the Stander while slowly wiping their face and raising their voice to a cabin-filling level, adding “I’M SURE THE PLANE WOULD AGREE. YOU’VE DONE NOTHING WRONG HERE.”

“For the love of God just SIT DOWN and SAVE IT for after we arrive!” someone shouted from a few rows behind me. I like to think of them as Thing 1, because….

“YA! We’ve got 3 more hours stuck on this plane. ENOUGH!” came out of another passenger immediately after Thing 1’s comment.

It was hard to know where exactly the second voice had come from, but it just made sense to think of them as Thing 2. Hopefully explaining my nicknames finally gives everyone an understanding for why my video had ‘credits.’

“SHUT UP! YOU HAVE NO IDEA WHAT THIS IS ABOUT, SO MIND YOUR OWN BUSINESS!” The Stander was now shouting indiscriminately towards the challenges they were receiving from passengers towards the back of the plane.

“THEY’RE RIGHT!” Another random voice blurted out. “Whatever this is, it’s between them. Just watch a movie and IGNORE it.” This passenger I named PD, or Public Defender. After hearing her blindly fire back at people she’d never even seen before, without any reason to become involved in the first place, this name seemed fitting. I feel like she really just wanted to stand up for something.... anything. Didn’t really matter what it was. I’m sure she supports a lot of important causes.

Anyways…. next thing I know Thing 1, the guy seated a few rows behind me, climbed out of his seat and into the aisle.

“WHO said that?” he shouted past me towards the front of the plane.

Silence.

“You’re an IDIOT.... Whoever you are. We are on a PLANE. Everything everyone says and does affects the rest of us. And the rest of us DON’T need this.”

All I could do was pan back and forth from the front to the rear of the plane. I was mesmerized.

To be honest with you, throughout my desperate attempts to catch every moment of this on my phone, the only real thought I had time for was, “Is this real? Is this actually happening?”

The passenger who had defended The Stander’s right to flip out, even on a plane — which I vehemently disagreed with myself — stood up and turned around. She was actually seated on the opposite side of the same emergency exit row as the Stander…. and she was ready to go to war.

…. For a person she didn’t know (we discovered this later during the arrests).

…. A person who was disrupting the entire flight.

It was bizarre.

“Typical male mentality! Just shut up and eat your feelings so you don't have to share them in public right!? As if you could ever imagine what it would feel like to be treated as less than your partner…. TOXIC MASCULINITY ON DISPLAY!”

Several of the flight attendants had converged on the area by this time and were standing in a huddle at the exit row clearly trying to decide how to deal with this. One made a ‘calm down’ gesture towards Thing 1, while the another had taken over from the original attendant and was trying to settle The Stander and return them to their seat. A third had begun to address PD when a half-eaten sandwich, launched as though it came from a cannon, flew over my head and into PD’s face. Since it was already half-unwrapped, the sandwich exploded on contact, showering her and her own partner in shredded vegetables, cold cuts, and saucy condiments of many colours.

Her husband rose to his feet. Shredded, mustard-soaked lettuce dangled from his right shoulder. He bellowed out;

“WHO THE F—— THREW THAT!?”

“It doesn’t matter” replied Thing 1. “You two sit down and shut up. YOU, {pointing to The Stander} you can sit down and shut up as well! NO ONE cares about your feelings or your business. We just want to get where we are going QUIETLY.”

Indiscriminate shouts started to pour in from all over economy class.

“YEAH! SHUT THE HELL UP AND SIT DOWN!”

“You can’t TALK to people that way! You ignorant fu—”

“They can say whatever they want Dum—”

“Ya! They have NO RIGHT to cause this sh—”

“But YOU have the right to shut someone down!? Pathetic mentality. YOU’RE A BULLY!”

“THE ONLY BULLY IS—”

While the cross-cabin screaming matches began PD’s husband pushed past the huddle of attendants, who could do nothing to stop the hulking man, towards Thing 1. Unfortunately for him, before he could reach my seat or Thing 1 behind me, who already seemed prepared to throw fists anyways, someone stuck their foot out into the aisle to trip him.

As he hit the ground, all hell broke loose.

Despite not being the one who threw the sandwich, Thing 1 had been the target of PD-husband’s anger, so in return, he jumped on top of the man as he hit the ground to pin him and start to whale away on him.

Another passenger tried to grab Thing 1 from behind to stop him from raining blows onto the husband, and one of the attendants jumped in too for good measure.

The Stander and PD were now screaming incoherently at Sarcasm, while the remaining attendants tried to settle them.

One attendant did break off to rush through first class. I assume they were trying to reassure passengers that everything was under control, but more importantly, they were definitely scrambling forward to let the pilot know what was happening in economy.

As the chaos unfolded, groups of people who had never spoken a word to each other, or even bothered to look in each other's direction as they stood in line to board the plane hours earlier, were now either defending each other, or screaming across the aisle at someone else. Arguments about who should actually “shut up,” who the “bullies” were, and who had what right to stand up for themselves in dozens of severely manipulated hypothetical circumstances had broken out everywhere. I couldn't even tell who was on what side.... and I doubt most of the people involved could either.

After 10-12 minutes of absolute mayhem, the pilot came over the speaker system to let people know we would be making an emergency landing here. He said that anyone involved in an argument or fight by the time we landed would be arrested on public disturbance charges, or worse. A smart move on his part I thought, as that seemed to be just enough of a threat to get the vast majority of people returned to their seats. Most still continued childishly arguing with each other from their spot at a 'reasonable' volume though.

It was seriously one of the most ridiculous things I’ve ever seen.

It was like people didn’t have any awareness that we were in a tiny metal tube, tens of thousands of feet in the air. Our lives dangled on the head of a pin, so to speak....

Yet all that mattered was winning a shouting match.

——

“Diane Tokayishi for Albatross News with Darryl P. from flight MS995…. The most recent in a rash of flights where passenger disputes over, some would say trivial matters, have forced emergency landings.”

“So you’re the only one who happened to get it all on video Darryl. This makes you kind of a central figure in the police investigation. Were you conscious of how important your footage might be as this was happening? What possessed you to keep filming instead of joining in one of the arguments, or shielding yourself in some way?”

“Honestly…. I just thought it was funny. I figured if I posted it on social media It would probably go viral. And I was right. Because it’s ridiculous.”

“Hmmmm, be that as it may, will you be allowing the police to use your footage to help identify who is ultimately responsible for this emergency landing and public safety threat?”

“Of course. I mean, I could tell you just from being there. But it’s nice to have it all on camera I guess. How can you argue with that right?”

“I’m sure there are many people who would find a way….”