FBI Man

I was returning from a nonprofit training seminar. I can’t recall the airline I was flying with, but I remember very well the trip.

A man in his mid to late 30s got on the plane. He was a big guy, about 6’3″, wearing a baseball cap that said “FBI” in large fuzzy letters. He looked displeased as he boarded, and the flight attendents all appeared to know him. They were acting concerned and apologetic. He kept his head high over whatever the disturbance had been, and acted with graciousness.

Then the flight started.

He was sitting one row up, in the aisle seat across from me. He struck up a conversation with the guy in the seat next to him. I wasn’t trying to evesdrop, but the conversation was loud enough that snippets of it came over the seats. The passenger next to him did not appear to be enjoying the conversation or actively participating in it, but this had no effect on FBI Man.

After a few attempts at starting conversations with those seated in his general vacinity, he gave up and went to the back of the plane, where I did not see him for quite some time. About an hour passed and I stepped to the back to use the restroom. When I got to the back of the plane I saw him talking to a male flight attendent. He stopped his conversation while I stood outside the occupied restroom doors and stared at me as if I were being rude. There was nothing I could do. I stood there for what seemed like a long time, waiting for a restroom to become available, all under FBI Man’s offended gaze.

I stepped into the restroom and came back out to find him still standing in the back with the flight attendent. This is the point when I noticed he had his arms across the small walkway as he was talking, and that the flight attendent was really kind of trapped and looked uncomfortable. Originally, I thought FBI Man might have been involved with the airline in some way because of his comportment. Now I realized he probably was not.

He returned to his seat and made increasingly odd and frequent requests to the flight attendents for service. Towards the last hour of the flight he began saying things that seemed to really disgust them, and began chewing tobacco. When the attendents came up the aisle for the final garbage collection, he opened the tobacco container and showed it to the attendent, saying “see? That’s my chew snoose.” She was obviously very disgusted with him as he laughed and deposited it into her garbage bag.

When the plane began its descent there was a very strong crosswind. The plane was bucking around and sliding to the left. Sometimes the tail would get hit by a particularly strong gust and swing the plane just a bit, which felt very uncomfortable to all of the passengers. It was obviously going to be a hard landing.

FBI Man was visibly sweating and gripping the seat arms with white-knuckle strength. He emitted a few yips and cries of abject fear as the plane descended, finally ripping his seatbelt off and charging to the back of the plane and entering the lavatory. The moment he got out of his seat, I saw the flight attendent to whom he had shown his snoose smirk and grab the phone above her seat. Moments later the pilot came on the intercom and demanded that all passengers return to their seat immediately and secure their seatbelts or the plane would not touch down. We heard a cuss-word from the restroom, then the door opened and slammed as he stormed up the aisle, took his seat and gripped his armrests.

When the plane touched down we hit the ground, bounced once and then the pilot stood on the breaks. That plane came to a stop much faster than any flight I’ve ever been on. We all got pushed forwards just a bit and FBI Man let out a scream of absolute terror. I think the pilot may have stepped on the brakes on purpose just to teach him a lesson because we still had a long stretch of runway to taxi down before turning off for our terminal.

As the lights came back on and the plane began to slow down to connect to the terminal, FBI Man, enraged from who knows what, took off his seatbelt and started charging towards the front of the plane. Immediately, two of the largest men I’ve ever seen stood up and announced that they were Federal Marshalls and he was to return to his seat. He ignored them.

Mistake.

Moments later he was on the floor, crying like a child and saying he was just scared while the agent put his knee in FBI Man’s back and explained to him that he needs to listen to people when they give him instructions.

I don’t know what the man’s imbalance was, but everyone, especially the flight attendents, applauded vigorously as he was taken from the plane. FBI Man obviously had some mental imbalances that he was dealing with, but I shudder to think what would have happened to the pilot had the federal marshalls not been on the plane. It was the funnest flight I’ve ever been on.

Tagged as: flight attendant, pilot, police, tobacco