Passenger slaps and spits on flight attendant in violent outburst

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A man spat on a flight attendant before slapping her round the face on a recent Brussels Airlines flight.

Footage of the violent incident was shared on Facebook by another passenger.

The video shows the unnamed man in an altercation with a male member of cabin crew.

He is shouting and can be heard threatening: “I’m going to beat the s*** out of you,” after the flight attendant repeatedly tells him to “calm down” and attempts to block the man using an arm to keep his distance.

A woman in the background can be heard defending the passenger, saying: “[The flight attendant] put his hands on my husband.”

She later shouts, “Where are the damn police?”

The plane’s female cabin manager tries to intervene and calm the man down, but he can be heard telling her to “shut the f*** up”.

The cabin manager tells him to finish, adding “We heard you. If you don’t finish, you will get in trouble.”

Another Brussels Airlines cabin crew tells the person filming to stop, but they can be heard arguing it’s “their right”.

After an inaudible but heated exchange between the cabin manager and the male passenger, he can be seen spitting in her face.

She responds by slapping him, and he hits her in the face before several men tackle him to the floor.

A woman is heard screaming and wailing in the background.

The footage was shared on Facebook by Carmen Moore after the flight on 13 March, and has been viewed more than 96,000 times at the time of writing.

Moore said the altercation started because the man complained that two men were elbowing his mother-in-law, who was sitting in between them in the middle seat.

“The man complained to the supervisor and was told they didn’t have to help him,” she wrote.

The Independent has contacted Brussels Airlines for comment.