TUCSON REALTOR GETS DUCT-TAPED TO HIS OWN FIRST-CLASS SEAT, LOSES THE JOB TOO

American Airlines Flight 618 left Dallas-Fort Worth Thursday night bound for Newark and landed in Baltimore instead, because a 67-year-old Tucson realtor allegedly decided the front of the plane was the place to lose it. Passengers say the man turned belligerent about halfway through, started hurling racial and anti-gay slurs at the crew and the cabin, then got physical, hitting the passenger beside him and a woman who tried to step in. A flight attendant tried to calm him and got nowhere. So the crew handed duct tape and zip ties to three male passengers, one of them a retired New Jersey cop named Juan Mejia, and they wrapped him to the chair. Photos show tape across his body, zip ties on his wrists, his head pinned back against the seat. The plane touched down at BWI around 10:15 p.m. Officers boarded, cut the tape off, and police say he then hit one of them in the chest, a bold move from a guy who had just been gift-wrapped by strangers in row three. He's charged with second-degree assault and disorderly conduct, was released on his own recognizance Friday, and is due back in court October 19. The FBI is consulting the US attorney about federal charges. TMZ reports his real estate firm has already cut him loose, which is the second time this week somebody removed him from a seat he thought he owned.

Why you should give a shit: American stocks the tape on purpose, the FAA has logged over 1,160 unruly passenger reports this year, and the only sky marshal you can actually count on is the retired cop who happened to book two rows up.