A United Airlines flight heading from San Francisco to Chicago O’Hare on Sunday night was forced to make an emergency diversion after an unruly passenger tried to tackle a flight attendant while shouting “nonsensical” ramblings about Mormons.
United flight UA1494 departed San Francisco (SFO) one minute early at 11:04 pm on February 9, but if the passengers on the Boeing 737 were hoping to get into Chicago ahead of schedule, they were in for a nasty shock.
According to one of the passengers on the red-eye flight to the Windy City, “a big dude kept coming up the aisle towards the front of the plane and had a few heated confrontations with the crew.”
At one point, the unruly passenger was face-to-face with one of the flight attendants, practically touching the crew member’s nose with his own as he started to shout profanities and rambled on about Mormons.
Another passenger confirmed this account, saying that the suspect “pretty much tried to tackle an FA [flight attendant]” before other passengers leapt from their seats and managed to subdue the perpetrator.
Flight attendants managed to restrain the unruly passenger with flexicuffs while the pilots made an emergency diversion to Denver so that the suspect could be hauled off the plane by local law enforcement.
In a statement, a spokesperson for United Airlines confirmed the incident, saying: “United flight 1494 from San Francisco to Chicago landed in Denver early Monday morning after one customer became disruptive and aggressive with a flight attendant.”
The statement continued: “Law enforcement met the aircraft at the gate in Denver and the passenger was removed.”
Having landed in Denver at around 2 am on Monday, the flight then didn’t depart for Chicago until 7:20 am, eventually arriving in Chicago five hours later than scheduled.
Unruly passenger incidents became a big issue in 2021 as unpopular face mask mandates created a toxic environment on many flights. At the peak of the problems in early 2021, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) recorded 720 disruptive passenger incidents in a single month.
In January 2025, however, just 106 incidents were reported to the FAA, the lowest number since April 2020 when passenger numbers fell off a cliff edge as the pandemic-related restrictions took hold across the United States.
Along with potential criminal charges, the FAA retains the power to slap unruly passengers with civil penalties of up to $37,000. The fine amount is per rule violation and not per incident, meaning that some unruly passengers have faced accumulative civil penalties of more than $100,000.
Let’s just hope they follow through with the fines and penalties. I’ll bet alcohol was involved.
Maybe they shouldn’t air Under The Banner Of Heaven on their flights.
I’m tired of idiots on planes. Heavy fines please!