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Woman Arrested For Threatening To Kill Entire Plane Over Smoking In The Bathroom

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Amber Randall Civil Rights Reporter
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A woman was arrested Saturday after she threatened to kill an entire plane of passengers when they caught her smoking in the bathroom.

Valerie Curbelo, 24, was on a Southwest flight headed to Sacramento, Cali. when she went into the bathroom to light up a cigarette, reports CBS News.

Airline authorities said Curbelo tried to tamper with the smoke detector as she was smoking in the airplane bathroom. According to a passenger who filmed the incident, Curbelo grew angry when she was told to stop smoking and to return to her seat. Curbelo was so enraged that she pushed a flight attendant and had to be restrained for the rest of the flight.

“The pilots declared an emergency to receive priority handling from air traffic controllers. Our crew handled the situation onboard the aircraft until the plane landed safely. Then, local authorities intervened to control the situation. Flight #2943 carried 136 customers and a crew of five. We express appreciation for the professionalism of our crew and the law enforcement officials who assisted with the incident,” Southwest said in a statement.

Curbelo was arrested when the plane landed, and is currently in jail facing charges for making criminal threats. According to Curbelo, she needed to smoke to calm down her “anxiety.”

“I don’t know. It was not me. It was not me,” Curbelo said.

Ires Alves Pereira, a woman flying from Brazil to New York, was arrested after biting a flight attendant and starting a drunken fight on a plane. Pereira reportedly punched her seat mate in the face and kicked and punched various flight attendants.

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