A passenger on an American Airlines flight who went ballistic at a flight attendant who caught him vaping has blamed nicotine withdrawal on his cringeworthy outburst.
Peter Nguyen went viral earlier this week after he was busted vaping in the bathroom on a flight from Phoenix to San Francisco on August 4.
After getting caught, he recorded his encounter with a flight attendant who reprimanded him for the illegal in-flight act.
After his antics made headlines, he told KVTU that he was going through withdrawal at the time and had to use the vape.
‘I wish I never picked up a vape to begin with,’ he said.
‘ It sucks knowing in order to be myself, I have to have nicotine. I feel so helpless.’
Nguyen also apologized to those onboard, saying: ‘From the bottom of my heart, I’m sorry to the other passengers. There is no excuse. No excuse for what happened.’
In the video, Nguyen started recording the visibly upset flight attendant during the Monday night flight.
‘I was actually sitting on the toilet, and you were opening the door,’ he said while standing in the doorway of the bathroom.
‘I don’t care!’ she shouted back, which led him to apologize for vaping. ‘You can keep saying you’re sorry, but I care about all these passengers.’
Shortly after, the flight attendant appeared to reach for Nguyen’s phone when she said she noticed him recording.
The video then cuts to Nguyen repeatedly accusing the flight attendant of putting her hands on him. Another member of the flight crew showed up to defend her colleague.
‘Why are you smoking? You’re not supposed to be smoking!’ she told Nguyen.
‘Yes, but she put her hands on me. I have a lawyer. I am a lawyer,’ he responded. ‘I have 25,000 followers. I have 25,000 followers that are going to watch this.’
The two flight attendants were not intimidated by Nguyen’s thinly veiled threat of legal action, nor were they moved by his follower count.
Instead, one of them again chastised him for vaping, to which he replied: ‘That’s my bad.’
He soon went back to yelling at the flight attendant, accusing her of invading his personal space and reminding her that he captured everything on camera.
‘So, do you want me to release this or do you want to say sorry to me right now?’ he offered.
The flight attendant did say she was sorry, which was only met with more accusations from Nguyen.
‘I am actually gonna call the police when I get back on the ground. On you!’ he said. ‘You reached over me. You tried to grab my phone. You assaulted me.’
She denied assaulting Nguyen, but this didn’t stop him from announcing what he said occurred to the rest of the plane.
‘This flight attendant assaulted me, everybody!’ he said as he walked into the aisle. ‘She put her hands on me.’
American Airlines confirmed that it was aware of the incident between Nguyen and the flight attendant, saying he was removed on arrival for disruptive behavior.
It’s not clear if Nguyen ended up calling the police like he said he would, but American Airlines said officers did respond once the plane landed.
‘The San Francisco Police Department met the flight upon arrival and escorted the customer out of the concourse,’ the airline added.
Vaping on a plane is a federal offense that can come with steep fines. If someone tampers with any of the plane’s smoke detectors, they can get hit with an additional $2,000 penalty.
