A Southwest Airlines flight turned around and made an emergency landing in Los Angeles late Sunday after a woman aboard the plane allegedly claimed a man tried to choke her because of a reclined seat back, according to the airline and witnesses.
Southwest would not confirm that a choking incident was involved but said “flight #2010 from LAX to San Francisco International airport returned to Los Angeles to allow police access to the cabin because of a rapidly escalating situation involving passengers who were not traveling together.”
Witnesses said the woman claimed the man sitting behind her tried to choke her because she reclined her seat.
“Evidently we’ve got two passengers who are in a physical altercation so we need to get turned around and get back to LAX,” the pilot of the plane told Air Traffic Control before landing safely in Los Angeles.
FBI spokeswoman, Laura Eimiller, said that a passenger was detained for questioning after the plane returned to Los Angeles, but no arrests were made. The remaining 136 passengers switched planes and would arrive in San Francisco about five hours late, according to Southwest.
It’s not the first time the skies have gotten a little unfriendly for fliers.
In 2013, an unruly passenger onboard an Icelandair flight was ductaped to his seat after allegedly drinking too much alcohol. Earlier this year, nearly 300 passengers on a flight from Rome to Chicago were forced to sleep on the floor of an airport in Belfast, Northern Ireland, after the plane made an unscheduled landing to offload a passenger who allegedly changed his shirt four or five times and was verbally abusive to women on the flight.
But it’s not just passengers who can go a little crazy in the air: A Korean Air Lines vice president went to jail and was forced to resign after raging at a flight attendant for serving her macadamia nuts in a bag instead of a plate.
This story originally appeared on NBCNews.com
Elisha Fieldstadt