By Mark Robertson
Photo: Getty Images
This is the moment a wild brawl broke out between two passengers trying to exit a plane at Miami International Airport, on Sunday night - just the latest in more than 3,000 violent incidents reported on air travel since January. Kiera Pierre Louis, who goes by her hip-hop name Milli Miami, recorded the whole incident, which broke out when a Frontier Airlines flight from Philadelphia landed in Miami Sunday at around 9:30 p.m. She told Local 10 News the white man grew angry at the black passenger because he thought he was taking to long to get his luggage from the overhead bin and was blocking his way out. The white man then threw the first punch, she said, and called the black passenger the 'n' word. 'I couldn't believe what was going on,' she said. 'You can see the white man on top of the black passenger and just beating him between the seats,' she said. 'The flight attendant got involved, the white man's wife got involved, his son, I believe his son's girlfriend, um, everyone was just involved.' She also noted that the white man who reportedly started the fight was allowed to leave the plane, while the black man was told to stay behind. 'Racism, of course,' Pierre Louis claimed. 'The black passenger had to wait on the plane, when he didn't even start it, and the police while we were walking off the plane, walked right past the person, the white man, who actually initiated everything.' Miami-Dade police, however, said the black passenger was 'not held back,' but instead chose to stay on the plane so he could file a police report. Ultimately, they said, he decided not to press charges, and the white man who reportedly started the brawl was allowed to leave. The nearly three-minute long video shows two men arguing, when a white man suddenly grabs a black man and pushes him down into the seat. A black woman then seems to get involved and starts attacking a white woman, who grabs her by the hair as a flight attendant asks what happened. The white man, meanwhile, continues to punch the black man, leading the black woman to grab the white man by the head, as people try to pull him off the black man. Eventually, several other passengers and a flight attendant were able to get the white man off the black man, and push him forward to deplane. The black man could be seen trying to follow him, but the black woman seemed to hold him back, as others on the plane shouted at him to 'get out Frontier Airlines referred any questions about the incident to the Miami-Dade Police Department, but confirmed in a statement to Local 10 News that a fight broke out on its flight from Philadelphia to Miami. 'All passengers involved were asked to remain on the aircraft, however some disregarded the flight crew's instructions,' the statement read. 'Ultimately, local law enforcement became involved.' Sunday's fight is just the latest in a string of violent incidents that have been documented at terminals and inside airplanes since air travel started to resume in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) announced in June that airlines have reported more than 3,000 incidents involving unruly passengers since January 1, with about 76 percent of the nearly 3,300 reports involving passengers who refused to wear masks on board their flights. It has collected $682,000 in these penalties since the new regulations went into effect. While the FAA agency did not track such reports in prior years, a spokesman said it was safe to assume this year's numbers are the highest ever.