BySimon Round, Simon Round
A passenger was thrown off an aircraft last week — for davening. The man, a strictly Orthodox Jew, went to the back of a United Airlines jet to pray shortly before take-off from New York’s Kennedy Airport. However, the plane was unable to take off for San Francisco while the man was unseated. Three flight attendants were unable to persuade him to interrupt his ma’ariv prayers — the man’s friends attempted to explain to them that, as Magnus Magnusson would have put it, once he had started he had to finish.
His prayers were not answered, however. By the time he had returned to his seat two-and-a-half minutes later, security had arrived and he was ejected from the aeroplane.
He was flown to San Francisco the following morning... after shacharit, of course.