DAILY NEWS: United Airlines flight forced to turn back by fight over reclined seat

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F-16 fighter jets escort Ghana-bound US jetliner back to Dulles airport after fisticuffs between two passengers

It is a minor annoyance familiar to air passengers: you take your seat in the cramped cabin, only to have your knees bashed when the person in front reclines his or her chair.

At worst, it normally leads to little more than an exchange of words, but the passengers on a flight from Washington discovered just how far such incidents can escalate, after a jetliner was forced to make an emergency landing when a fist fight broke out between two men.

As the 144 passengers on the United Airlines plane bound for Ghana from Dulles airport on Sunday settled in for the over-night flight tempers between two fliers boiled over after one of them lowered his seat into the lap of the other.

According to witnesses a fight broke out not long after the 10:44pm departure, forcing a flight attendant and another passenger to jump in between the men. The pilot took the decision to take the plane back to Dulles, because of fears about terrorism, it is believed.

The plane was escorted by a pair of F-16 fighter jets, and was forced to circle Dulles for 25 minutes in order to burn off fuel and decrease its weight, as it is able to take off with a full tank, but not land.

Audio transmissions, which can be heard on the Washington Post website, reveal that the two US air force fighters took off from Andrews airbase at 11:03pm, just as the airliner re-entered Washington airspace. On the audio recordings, the pilot of Flight 990 is heard telling the control tower that an assault has taken place. Asked about the passenger who had hit the person in front, the pilot replied: "The passenger is not secured at this time; the passenger has settled down, though, but an assault has taken place, but at this time he is not secured."

Police met the flight at the gate, said Rob Yingling, a spokesman for the metropolitan Washington airports authority, but charges were not pressed. The unruly passengers are likely to have cost the airline a significant amount, and delayed the flight until yesterday. It is not known if the two men were aboard that flight, and if so, where they were sat.

Alexandra Topping

guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2011 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds

Polly Curtis, Hélène Mulholland 01 Jun, 2011

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Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/jun/01/united-airlines-flight-seat-fight
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