A Florida man will spend two months in federal prison for calling a flight attendant a “slave” and a “nigger bitch” before threatening to kill her and blow up a Spirit Airlines flight. If this sounds crazy, then you’ve never flown Spirit Airlines or met “Florida Man.”
Whenever any news headline begins with “Florida Man,” you know it’s going to be good. I don’t know what it is about the Sunshine State, but if they aren’t committing meth-fueled armed robberies with a pet crocodile in their pants, they’re being investigated for letting a boa constrictor babysit their 8-month-old while they perform at amateur night at the local strip club. And yes, “Florida Man” is sometimes a woman. Don’t be sexist.
According to the Miami Herald, Michael Minko, the Florida man in question, was taking a flight from Newark, N.J., to Fort Lauderdale, Fla., which was the first problem. I don’t support profiling in any way, shape or form, but anyone going from Fort Lauderdale to Brick City is probably up to some shit.
Court documents show that a passenger noticed Minko pounding generic-grade Xanax like they were candy corn the day after Halloween (candy corn is a trash candy but, for the purposes of this story, an apt analogy). Not satisfied with his impending drug-induced haze, our boy Michael drank half a bottle of bourbon on the first hour of the flight, which lets me know Michael was white and they probably called him “White Mike.” I’m “Black Mike” and I can’t get a bottle of Lubriderm Advanced Therapy lotion on the plane without a cavity search and a conversation with Homeland Security.
When a flight attendant told Minko that he couldn’t drink from the bottle, Minko threatened to kill her and everyone on the flight by blowing up the plane. A witness said that he called the attendant, identified as B.B. in the court files, a “nigger bitch” and a “slave” several times. B.B. was so afraid that she backed off, only giving Minko a barf bag because he said he felt sick.
The drunk, high Florida man also punched the back of the chair in front of him, pushed another passenger and began punching his window. He was finally subdued and put in plastic cuffs when three men stepped in and helped.
A federal judge sentenced Michael Minko to two years in prison, followed by two years of probation; he will start his sentence after receiving treatment for alcohol and drug abuse. It wasn’t really the racial thing—interfering with a flight crew or its attendants is a federal crime.
In a statement about the incident, the company operating the flight did not say, “I mean ... it’s Spirit Airlines, bruh. We’re like Greyhound with wings.”