Another flight, yet another episode of a passenger causing a disturbance on the plane. This time, a male passenger was arrested for masturbating during a Southwest Airlines flight from Seattle to Phoenix on April 2, 2022. The man now faces federal charges.
As The Daily Beast reported, Antonio Sherrodd McGarity was sitting next to a female passenger and minutes after Southwest flight 3814 took off, he pulled down his pants and then started to masturbate in front of her. He did the lewd act four times, according to the Daily Beast, which obtained the criminal complaint.
After noticing his movements next to her, the woman decided to take photos of him touching himself. Moments after McGarity fell asleep, she called a flight attendant, reporting the whole incident and asking for changing to another seat on the plane, which was allowed.
On landing at Phoenix airport, the photos were shown to the police who immediately arrested McGarity.
The male passenger admitted he was doing the obscene act to the FBI, but he emphasized he didn’t think the female passenger was feeling uncomfortable with him behaving lewdly. McGarity also said he thought she was ‘kind of kinky’ for taking photos of him while he was masturbating.
Southwest told The Daily Beast that McGarity has been slapped with a lifetime ban.
“On April 2, we received reports of inappropriate Customer behavior on flight 3814 from SEA to PHX. The situation was reported to Crewmembers while inflight, and the Captain contacted law enforcement to meet the aircraft upon arrival,” the airline told The Daily Beast. “We immediately placed the passenger on our No-Fly List, resulting in a lifetime ban from traveling on Southwest.”
Now, McGarity is facing federal charges related to lewd, indecent, or obscene acts. If convicted, he e can face up to 2 years in jail, according to The United States Department of Justice.
It is not the first time that a male passenger has been arrested for masturbating on flight. As Travel Noire reported in May 2021, actress Shalita Grant took to Twitter to post a video, that went viral, showing a short clip of a Guatemalan male passenger in her row with his hands down his pants on a United Airlines flight.
