A stolen mobile phone story onboard an American Airlines flight to Philadelphia is so strange you have to wonder if it is real.
Stolen Phone On American Airlines Is The Culmination Of A Very Odd Flight
Chase Mitchell was flying on AA from Los Angeles (LAX) to Philadelphia (PHL). He took to Twitter first to complain that his seatmate tried to get him to swap his middle seat for Mitchell’s aisle seat. This was because his seatmate and his wife were each seated in middle seats across the aisle from one another.
Next, Mitchell shared that the guy was rudely watching videos (of trumpets…what?) on his mobile phone without headphones at full volume.
Then the story takes a very strange turn. Like One Mile At A Time, I am just going to post verbatim how Mitchell unfolded the story of the stolen mobile phone:
- He and his wife (oh by the way, Window never showed up, so she’s sitting in here too) are three rum and waters in. Not like they’re mixing rum and water, like they’re shooting mini bottles of rum and chasing it with water, and complaining about the airline’s headphone policy
- I’m gonna need like a day to decompress from this before I talk about the insane sh*t that happened AFTER this, but… this experience ended with the guy stealing my phone and being taken off the plane
- Alright f*ck it I’m waiting on an Uber so I’ll start. Some context – I flew LAX to Philly for a friend’s wedding. American Airlines. I didn’t bring my laptop, so my phone is all I have – numbers, my hotel reservation, the NAME of my hotel, everything. That will be important later
- Then all that sh*t above happened. I’m thinking, these are the worst people I’ve ever flown w/, but w/e. I’m being polite (while tweeting about it). I’m watching Scream. Meanwhile like I said they’re both 3-4 rums deep. I notice he starts having outbursts, yelling “f*ck,” etc
- This is one of those planes w/o screens behind the seats, so I’m watching the movie on my phone. I notice they’re both kinda weird about it – she asks how I have the internet, like she’s unfamiliar with plane Wifi. Whatever, they’re both older, I don’t think much of it
- Back half of the flight, he’s having more outbursts, Yelling “F*ck! I feel sick!” and stuff. He needs to get up and out of there VERY fast, so I get out of his way. After a long time, he comes back to his seat. Right when we’re all back situated, he IMMEDIATELY needs to go again
- Each time I’m standing up to let him out, I’m making sure to unhook my phone from the seatback and put it back in my pocket. Meanwhile, these people have annoyed the f*ck out of me in every different way, but they keep saying sorry and I keep saying “it’s fine, no worries”
- Every time he sits back down, he’s really performative a/b how sick he is – keeps yelling “I THREW UP 3 TIMES” and sh*t. Finally, closer to landing, he needs to go a THIRD time. This time he’s straight up rude about it, like, “I GOTTA GO NOW, GET THE F*CK OUT OF THE WAY”
- This time was so urgent and violent I had to get up without having time to think about it, and when I sit back down, I can’t find my phone.
- So anyway while he’s gone again I am looking EVERYWHERE – I literally just had it. I feel around under the seats, pull the cushions apart, etc. I ask his wife if she’s seen a phone – no answer. I figure she didn’t hear me, ask again. No answer
- This is around when it dawns on me 1) how absolutely f*cked I would be without it, how few numbers I know anymore (like I said, I didn’t even commit to memory the name of my hotel) and, 2)… I think that f*cking guy took it?? It feels like an INSANE accusation to even think of
- I start panicking and go talk to the flight attendants. First we’re just commiserating about the couple – they’ve been putting up with their sh*t too – and one of the FAs casually says, “Yeah the guy told me he thought you were like, using your phone to plan something. He’s nuts”
- This by the way, is so weird. Other than needing to urgently run to the bathroom and yelling a little, he has not been outwardly hostile to me at this point. Like I said, he was apologizing for getting up so much, and in fact, I’d just taken their picture for them w/*their* phone
- So what that FA tells me is WILD. I tell him, “well that’s really interesting because I cannot find my phone anywhere.” I hesitate to make an accusation – like I said, it still feels like an insane thing to think happened. They both go check the seat with flashlights. Nothing.
- Another passenger who didn’t hear our conversation discreetly sidles up to me and says he SAW the guy yank the phone out of the seat on his way to the bathroom. Now I realize how long the guy has been in there this time, and I’m like, “F*ck”
- My mind is jumping to even crazier places – that dude has my phone (now, I’m sure), and now it’s more like “What the f*ck is he doing in there with it.” I start worrying he’s trying to flush it, or cram it in a trash can, or just f*cking smash it. I mean WHAT IS HIS PLAN
- He finally leaves the bathroom and goes back to his seat. And the FAs and I are looking at each other like “Well what now.” One of them says, “…you could… ask him?” Sounds like a bad plan! They ask if I have an Apple Watch. I don’t. But I do have my AirPods
- I realize if I put them in my ears and the phone is close by (and, please for the love of god, still working), I’ll hear the sound it makes when they connect. So I put them in… and they do
- So all that’s left to do now is ask the guy. The FAs approach him first, and he denies it, plays dumb, pulls out his phone and says it’s all he’s got on him. So, with pretty much nothing left to do, I sit down back next to him, and I ask him myself
- He again, denies it, a little more frantically this time. Without naming or pointing out the other passenger who told me, I tell him that someone told me they saw him do it. He demands to know who. I realize this may have been the wrong approach
- By now everyone around us knows what’s going on, and that’s not helping either, because it’s hitting the conspiracy part of his brain. He starts thinking there’s some plot afoot. Next to me, very quietly, a dude I am very sure is an air marshall says, “I can help if I need to”
- So he starts pointing to various people and accusing them of being in on it. He says the air marshall’s bag has been flashing green (it has not) and that I’ve been sending signals out from my phone the whole flight (he’s still not admitted having it – a slight flaw in his logic)
- So basically we’re at a standstill – I’m still panicking where and in what state my phone it is – and quietly it’s made clear to me that this guy will be escorted off and patted down when we land. Also, in all of this – we’re about to land and… I gotta find a new place to sit
- So i sit next to a very nice man several rows up who’s basically like “hey, what’s goin on back there?” Like dude, not now. I sit through the most intense landing of my life. And I have this intrusive thought: what if the f*cking lights come on and it’s under my seat or some sh*t
- LUCKILY, that does not happen. The man is taken off, and then a few minutes later, another air marshall or cop-adjacent guy comes on and asks me to come to. I’m like “Sh*t, am I… in trouble too somehow?”
- I get out to the jetway, and the guy is standing there, and now he’s changed his tune from “I didn’t take it,” to, “If you check his phone, it will tell you everything.” They ask him to empty his pockets, he does, and I immediately, blissfully, see my Lock Screen flash on
- They (being thorough) are like, “Can you unlock it?” and I’m like “well as a matter of fact my literal face does that.” I do, it does, they hand it back. He keeps demanding they check it for… spy stuff I guess? They obviously do not. All they would’ve seen is the end of Scream
- They ask me if I wanna press charges. I don’t – I think the guy is unwell despite the fact that he has really really f*ckin annoyed me tonight and he needs to drink less rum on airplanes. I hope him his wife had a terrible ride home.
Wow, just wow.
This Mitchell is supposedly a writer for The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon and I can see why – this is a hilarious account. At the same time, I do wonder if there is some exaggeration here. First, I find it unlikely that the couple would manage three rums each in American Airlines economy class, even if one at a time. Second, it would really be something of there was two air marshals onboard.
Some have wondered how he could possibly not know what hotel he is staying in, but I have Award Expert clients who are just like that. Wealthy or well-accomplished people who are scatterbrained when it comes to certain things…it is just the way some people are and I find that some people who consider themselves important never bother to actually read emails.
Whatever the case, the cell phone culprit seems like a very troubled individual.
CONCLUSION
If you made it through this long piece, I hope you at least got a few chuckles. This sounds like a particularly deplorable flight.
This story was first noted by One Mile At A Time a few days ago and when I read it, like him, was speechless for a moment. So many odd elements. Before writing about it, I wanted to give it a few days to see if any further facts or differing accounts emerged. None have. I’m still not fully convinced there is no exaggeration in the story, but I find so many interesting angles to this story I cannot help but cover it.
What do you think really happened here? Should Mitchell have pressed chargers or would that have been even more trouble than it was worth?
That is weird. I’ll bet there’s some embellishment to the story, but I also think he wouldn’t just make it up. If he’s a writer on The Tonight Show, he’d be jeopardizing his job if people found out it were all a lie.
The not knowing the name of the hotel happens to me every so often. In fact, I have just realised that I have a stay in AMS next week and I can’t remember the name of the hotel I booked a month ago. Basically the information is of limited value until one is in town- no real reason to remember unless it’s something super luxurious or has been booked due to points/status benefits.
Ok, so I’ll admit I taught ol’ Stu the seat swapping hustle, but the rest of his behavior is all on him.
I’ve worked with a lot of people who are bi-coastal and/or travel all the time and they can never keep track of where they are staying next (since it is rarely ‘home’), so I don’t find that odd. The rest of the story is a hoot!
Not pressing charges leaves them free to do it to the rest of us next time!
He writes for Jimmy Fallon? Well, with the quality of the writing in this story and how terrible Jimmy Fallon is – as a comic *and* as a night show “host”, I guess I’m not surprised. Good thing this twit documented it all on Twitter instead of actually doing something about it. He got what he deserved and should maybe get a better job more suited to his apparent strengths…something not involving comedy.
Reading the story, I had a philosophical insight:
We’ve become a rather physically isolated society similar to that portrayed by Isaac Asimov in “Under the Naked Sun” and particularly so in the USA since the 1960’s. Most people don’t take busses or trains to commute to work and since the 1960’s took cars. In modern times, it’s possible that we might even use “self checkout” which minimizes interactions with store personnel. When I was a kid, I knew nearly everyone around for 2 blocks from school, trick-or-treating, or the local church.
So the rare times we do interact with people nowadays is on an airline flight because if you don’t live in England and have “Prince” in front of your name, you’re probably flying commercial. We are forced to sit down next to some stranger and sometimes it’s unpleasant.
What’s neat about traveling is seeing how other cultures handle social situations. Aside from the Japanese being notorious chain smokers, I’d otherwise love to be around them from what I hear. Yes, learning manners is burdensome and even feels restrictive but it can be wonderful once you do knowing that people are pleasant, even if they’re socially conditioned to be sort of like how McD’s trains their staff to smile. (This was particularly shocking to Russians when their McD’s opened up.)
I think it also just makes people more pleasant and, hence, public transportation isn’t such a big deal in these places. Riding on a bus in the states can sometimes be scary but in the countryside of Ukraine and Poland, I actually enjoyed it. Convenient, relaxing, and interesting.