Summary
Orthodox Jewish passenger Yisroel Liebb filed a federal lawsuit claiming a United Airlines pilot forcibly removed him from an airplane bathroom during a January 2024 flight from Tulum to Houston, exposing his genitalia to passengers.
Liebb said he was experiencing constipation and had been in the bathroom for about 30 minutes when the pilot broke the lock and dragged him out.
After landing, Customs and Border Protection officers detained Liebb and another passenger, allegedly making derogatory remarks about their religion.
United Airlines and CBP declined to comment.
The pilot could be fired, and it would definitely impact his license. It would be a permanent alteration to his career. In a physical sense, he could choose to. In a practical sense, fuck no, get back in your seat with your seat belt on.
The reason is that if anything goes wrong on landing, the guy in the bathroom could be injured or killed. The airlines have started fucking around, as far as safety, but the regulations about what pilots are allowed to do were still written back when they did not fuck around.
Discovery will be interesting. I hope that the pilot was on the radio with someone asking for advice/providing updates and doing general CYA things before they physically confronted the passenger. I could easily see the pilot being agitated because they were put in that situation, but I also hope there were other interactions leading up to a rapid escalation.