A white passenger was asked to leave a domestic airline after allegedly throwing racist insults at a black passenger.
A FlySafair flight from Cape Town to Port Elizabeth was delayed last Friday as the on-board pilot had to deal with an incident of a man allegedly using derogatory language against another passenger.
A portion of the incident was captured on video, and shows the white man arguing with fellow passengers after he apparently called the man in front of him an “a**hole”.
After the initial exchange, he is then believed to have turned to a black couple who defended the victim and said “you people are all the same.”
The couple have since been identified as Nthabi and Sanele Sibanda, a Wits University professor, according to a twitter user Jacqueline Rainers who retweeted the video saying the Sibanda’s are her relatives.
In the video, other passengers are seen informing the pilot of the incident after he was alerted by the cabin crew.
“Sir, you are legally obligated to keep us safe. I do not feel safe going into the air with this kind of aggression,” a voice was heard complaining to the pilot.
Others corroborated the story and the pilot asked the man to disembark resulting in a loud applause by the passengers.
The man finally stood up and said‚ “We will get out of the way‚ thank you very much. We will get off the plane‚” which was met with applause from the other passengers.
He then collected his luggage from the aircraft’s overhead compartment before disembarking.
FlySafair confirmed the incident and expressed readiness to co-operate with investigation by authorities as required, local travel news media Traveller 24 reported.
“It is the obligation of the Captain of an aircraft to make the final call regarding his view on any potential threats on board the aircraft… In accordance with this, we would like to commend the Captain for following Civil Aviation Safety procedures,” the airline spokesperson Kirby Gordon said.
