Disruptive passenger forces Spirit Airlines flight to make emergency landing in Houston

Flickr/afagen

(CBS/AP) HOUSTON - A disruptive passenger on a Spirit Airlines flight from Los Angeles to Fort Lauderdale forced a pilot to make an emergency landing at Bush Intercontinental Airport.

Police said an 86-year-old partially blind man who cannot speak English became unruly onboard a Spirit Airlines flight to Florida, compelling the pilot to divert to Houston.

Spirit Airlines says Flight 310 from Los Angeles to Fort Lauderdale, Fla., landed at George Bush Intercontinental Airport early Sunday due to a "disruptive customer."

According to CBS affiliate KHOU in Houston, because of the emergency landing, passengers on the flight were stuck in Houston with at least a 10-hour flight delay. After spending an hour on the tarmac, they were forced to wait about 10 hours in the terminal with no food or opportunity to ask for more information. Part of the problem was that Spirit airlines did not have a station set up at Bush Intercontinental Airport.

One passenger told KHOU that they had to rely on the departure and arrivals board for information, which just kept adding an additional hour to their expected re-departure time.

Police spokesman Kese Smith said Monday the man apparently spoke only French and was traveling alone. Smith said he became frightened and swung at other passengers. Police found an interpreter and contacted the man's son, who flew to Houston and accompanied his father to Florida.

Smith did not provide the man's name.

Spirit spokeswoman Misty Pinson says the other passengers were assigned to a new flight on Sunday and that they will be refunded for the inconvenience.

[ilovedessert1]

More people should think twice before taking Sprint Airlines....they are a totally horrible airline...they're so cheap that the wanted to remove all BATHROOMS from the planes, so that they could install extra seats and sell them....

When the FAA said that they couldn't....they wanted to remove some of the bathrooms for the same reason...however the FAA has a minimum formula for the number of seats vs the number of bathrooms.

Then the cheap SOB who runs the airlines, got the idea that he would charge for the use of the bathrooms, aka a pay toilet, in order to boost the Accounts Payable revenue...however that also is against the law...

I'm surprised they don't require you to take an enema before boarding so that you weigh less and therefore use less fuel and to have the passengers flap their arms so they could assist on take off's......

They also have THE MOST COMPLAINTS LODGED AGAINST AN AIRLINE ACCORDING TO THE FAA FOR THE PAST FEW YEARS....lost luggage, damaged luggage, surly and rude emplyees....

I see no reason why ANYONE would have to swallow their self respect to fly on Sprint!

[retiredgustav]

They should have taken Southwest!

[hamiltongrad]

EDITING ? "who cannot speak English"