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One Reclined Seat Leads To Jet Turning Around, Fighters Being Scrambled

Tight quarters: Aboard a United Airlines Embraer-145, 50-passenger jet. (June 1, 2008 file photo taken at Dulles International Airport.)
Paul J. Richards
/
AFP/Getty Images
Tight quarters: Aboard a United Airlines Embraer-145, 50-passenger jet. (June 1, 2008 file photo taken at Dulles International Airport.)

If you fly a lot you've had this happen.

Seconds after the jet's in the air, the @#$%^&* in front of you reclines his seat, crunching your knees and raising some questions:

-- 1. Do you recline your seat as well and spread the pain to the person behind you?

-- 2. Do you grin and bear it like the stoic person you think you are?

-- 3. Do you ask the offender to give you a break and put the seat up at least a little?

-- 4. Or, do you smack the guy in the back of the head, starting an argument that ends up involving another passenger and a flight attendant and convinces the pilot to turn the plane around and leads to the scrambling of two U.S. Air Force F-16 fighter jets to escort the jet back to Dulles International Airport?

According to The Washington Post, someone aboard a United Airlines flight from Dulles to Ghana on Sunday night chose option No. 4. And the pilot did indeed turn the jet, with 144 passengers, around. And fighters were scrambled to shadow it.

No one ended up getting arrested. But the flight was delayed until the next day. United spokesman Mike Trevino told the Post it's unclear whether the battling passengers were aboard the Monday flight — or if they were, where they were sitting.

All right everyone, be honest, what do you do in that situation?

Update at 11:35 a.m. ET: We've collected some of the best comments in a new post headlined "From Blowing Air To Singing In His Ear; Responses To A Rude Recliner."

Copyright 2020 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.

Mark Memmott is NPR's supervising senior editor for Standards & Practices. In that role, he's a resource for NPR's journalists – helping them raise the right questions as they do their work and uphold the organization's standards.