A bizarre scene took place in a United Airlines flight as a pilot dressed in street clothes began ranting about politics and her divorce before having a nervous breakdown. The flight was bound for San Francisco International Airport on Saturday evening.
The pilot took control of the intercom and began revealing intricate details of her divorce, said Randy Reiss, a passenger on the airplane. She was also firing off about the recent election, while United Airlines Flight 455 was parked at the Austin-Bergstom International Airport, said NECN.
Reiss tweeted about the incident, saying that he felt uncomfortable and unsafe during that point of the pilot's rant. He proceeded to storm off of the plane, about which half of the other passengers followed after, passenger Sylvia Nguessan said.
United Airlines issued a statement, confirming that the pilot was removed from the airplane following the ordeal. "We uphold our employees to the highest standards and replaced this pilot with a new one to operate the flight," the statement said. "We apologize to our customers for the inconvenience."
Reiss, while waiting in the airport for his flight to depart, eventually ran into the pilot. He said that she was crying and that she apologized for her actions. Reiss said he wished her well, and he later issued a statement backing up that hope.
In the statement, he mentioned that he considers being a pilot to be a tough and stressful job. He also said that the particular pilot did not seem emotionally equipped or deemed fit to do the job on the day the incident happened. "I hope she gets the help she probably needs," he said in the statement, according to NBC.
Nguessan echoed a similar empathy, saying that she finds the ordeal to be somewhat saddening, especially at the end when the pilot was in tears. She said, "I talked to her and hugged her because she was having a nervous breakdown."
She explained that the pilot was swarmed with fear seconds after she began her speech, and was taken over by what she decribes to be a major "nervous breakdown". United Airlines said in a statement that Flight 455 eventually departed from Austin roughly two hours late.
