I just returned from a nice vacation South of Cancun and had a little excitement on the return flight last night. About an hour into the direct flight from Cancun into Charlotte a man got into a fight with another passenger and was subdued after a short struggle. The plane was diverted to Miami where he was taken off of the plane along with a female passenger.

I saw it happen right in front of me, and on top of me actually, as the fighting at one point was happening in the empty seat next to me and I had to push the two off of me.

I've been on many, many flights for business since 9/11 and on each one I was careful to check out all the people around me and try to be alert.. this time was a bit different since I had my family with me coming back from a vacation.. I popped in my ear buds and started watching a movie on my iPod nano. The ear buds silenced everything around me so I didn't hear the two arguing. I was sitting in the first row behind the bulkhead (separating first class from coach) so I didn't have a good view of what was going on in the front of the plane. I just saw one guy in the last row of first class (on the opposite side of the plane from me) and the "attacker" suddenly start wrestling and within a few seconds they were on top of me and a few seconds later a third guy from first class pulled the "attacker" onto the floor. It wasn't clear to me (as they were wrestling beside me) who I should help.. I didn't see what precipitated the altercation. I just kept them off of me and my daughter and tried not to get in the middle of what looked like two old white guys pissed off at each other and they were in the floor before I had a chance to figure out what the heck was going on.

Other passengers told me that the man was seated further back in coach and had been drinking heavily and went into first class and argued with the woman who was also taken off the plane in Miami. So what appears to be a domestic dispute caused a bunch of people to miss connecting flights, etc. My kids saw and heard the whole thing and it was traumatic.. seeing a guy laying in the aisle at our feet getting handcuffed and yelling profanity is normally not what you expect to see when you get on a USAir flight.

Alcohol seems to be a real problem for folks flying to Charlotte this week.. as there was an incident on an American Airlines flight.

---- updated to add.. ---
it's finally been picked up by the media here and here and here