A 21-year-old man of Indian origin from New Jersey was arrested following a violent mid-air brawl with a fellow passenger on a Frontier Airlines flight from Philadelphia to Miami on Monday night.
Ishaan Sharma was taken into custody after the flight landed at Miami International Airport and has been charged with battery.
Sharma assaulted Keanu Evans for no apparent reason soon after their flight took off from Philadelphia. After the mid-air brawl, Sharma sustained a black eye along with a laceration on his eyebrow, reported Hindustan Times.
A now-viral video captures a fellow passenger pleading, “Let him go. Stop, let him go,” while a crew member instructed, “Sir, you have to sit down.”
In an interview with WSVN, Evans described the encounter as unprovoked, noting that Sharma started behaving erratically and making death threats. He recalled, “He was doing this dark laugh, like, ‘Ha ha ha ha ha,’ and saying things like, ‘You puny, mortal man, if you challenge me, it will result in your death.’”
Evans alerted the flight crew and was advised to press the assistance button if Sharma continued his aggressive behaviour. Moments later, Sharma allegedly confronted him again, putting his forehead against Evans's as if to challenge him before grabbing him by the throat and starting to choke him. “At that moment, it was fight or flight... all I could do was defend myself,” Evans said.
The scuffle left Sharma with a cut above his left eyebrow, while Evans received scratches on his face. Witnesses reported that after the fight, Sharma returned to his seat grinning and took selfies of his bloodied face before being escorted off the plane in handcuffs.
According to The Daily Mail, Sharma was first taken to Jackson West Hospital for treatment before being booked into custody. During his court appearance on Tuesday, his attorney, Renee Gordon, claimed that the incident started because Sharma was meditating. “My client is from a religion where he was meditating,” Gordon explained. “Unfortunately, the passenger behind him did not like that.”
However, the judge was not convinced by this explanation. Miami-Dade Circuit Judge Gerald Hubbart set Sharma’s bond at $500 and issued a stay-away order, prohibiting him from contacting Evans or going near his school or workplace.
“I don’t want people to get the wrong idea about who I am,” Evans told 7News. “I’m a good person. I recently got baptised. I just wish I had been more firm in asking to be moved away from him.”
Frontier Airlines has yet to respond to the incident publicly.
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