The passenger later confessed he had knowingly taken psychoactive psilocybin mushrooms. Photo / Emiel Molenaar, Unsplash
A passenger arrested on assault charges on a United Airlines flight was found to be tripping on magic mushrooms.
Chelluy Loghan Sevilla was charged with attacking two cabin crew members and attempting to interfere with the flight from Miami to Washington DC, last week.
An affidavit filed in the Eastern
District of Virginia, regarding the incident on 4 October, said Sevilla began acting erratically about an hour into the service.
Authorities said that the passenger grabbed the arm of the traveller next to him before "wandering around the plane, running up and down the aisle, clapping loudly near the cockpit and yelling obscenities."
Trying to get access to one of the plane toilets, Sevilla broke part of the door when he found it was occupied.
When asked by flight attendants to return to his seat, Sevilla's "screams and outburst grew louder," according to witness statements. Instead he lay down in the aisle refusing to move.
He reportedly grabbed and twisted the breast of a female flight attendant who tried to get Sevilla to move. He "suddenly jumped and attacked" reads the affidavit.
A police officer, who was also onboard the plane, intervened with handcuffs. However the passenger continued to struggle, twisting the arm of another flight attendant.
Restrained in cuffs he continued to "scream and yell incoherent things for the remainder of the flight."
