YouTuber’s parody as flight attendant ‘Alfredo Rivera’ duct taping passenger goes viral
Many Twitter users are sharing what they believe to be a genuine interview with an airline employee
Popular YouTuber The Real Spark has gone viral once again with his parody about a disruptive passenger who was duct-taped to his seat during a Frontier Airlines flight.
The Real Spark, born James Bates per his Instagram, decided to mock the flight attendant’s response in amusing footage of him portraying the role as airline staff named Alfredo Rivera being interviewed by a local news station. In the viral clip, the social media personality pretends to be one of the flight attendants who restrained the unruly passenger, and he gives a recap of what went down during the flight.
“This man smelled like a pack of Marlboro cigarettes, four shots of Everclear alcohol and regret — so I know something’s about to go down,” The Real Stark declared.
He then claimed the belligerent passenger “got scared and started stuttering, ‘Hold up, wait a minute, something ain’t right.’ I said, “Yeah, we’re about to m-m-m-m-m-m-m-mummify you’re a– now, boy.’ So we wrapped him up better than any Christmas present you ever seen.”
Many Twitter users believed they were sharing a genuine interview with an airline employee.
Watch the NSFW clip below.
A Saturday flight from Philadelphia to Miami on Frontier Airlines went awry when a 22-year-old man identified by Miami’s Local 10 as Maxwell Berry, of Norwalk, Ohio, became violent and was subsequently duct-taped to a chair.
Berry had been drinking on the flight and at one point, he spilled alcohol on his shirt and took off the shirt while in the bathroom. A flight attendant reportedly helped him get a new shirt from his luggage.
Berry allegedly groped two female flight attendants’ breasts, cursed at fellow passengers, and attacked a male attendant, Newsweek reports.
The passenger “made inappropriate physical contact with two flight attendants and subsequently physically assaulted another flight attendant,” Frontier confirmed in a statement to USA TODAY.
A now-viral video of the wild scene shows a male flight attendant asking Berry to calm down before he is punched in the face by the passenger. Berry, who is not wearing a mask, can be heard yelling, “You guys (expletive) suck” and bragging about his family’s wealth.
Flight attendants were ultimately forced to restrain Berry to his seat with duct tape. Though it was reported that the crew involved had been suspended, the airline said that it was standard procedure to place employees on leave while incidents on a flight are investigated.
“As a result, the passenger needed to be restrained until the flight landed in Miami and law enforcement arrived,” Frontier said in a statement.
Berry was arrested following the incident and charged with three misdemeanor counts of battery, according to multiple reports.
“Frontier Airlines maintains the utmost value, respect, concern and support for all of our flight attendants, including those who were assaulted on this flight. We are supporting the needs of these team members and are working with law enforcement to fully support the prosecution of the passenger involved. The inflight crew members’ current paid leave status is in line with an event of this nature pending an investigation,” the airline said in a statement to Newsweek.
Sara Nelson, president of the Association of Flight Attendants-CWA, slammed the airline’s decision to put the inflight crew on paid leave pending the inquiry.
“Management suspended the crew as a knee-jerk reaction to a short video clip that did not show the full incident,” said Nelson in a statement.
“Management should be supporting the crew at this time, not suspending them. We will be fighting this with every contractual and legal tool available, but we would hope there will be no need for that as management comes to their senses and supports the people on the frontline charged with keeping all passengers safe,” she said.
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