Muslim Woman Told on Flight She Would ‘Bring the Whole Plane Down,’ Advocacy Group Says

Look, I need yall to understand something and I need you to really sit with it for a minute. We are in the year 2020. Its been almost twenty years since September 11th. And Muslim women in America are STILL getting harassed on airplanes for the crime of… existing? For wearing hijab? For having the audacity to book a flight and sit in a seat they paid for? This is exhausting to keep reporting on, yall. It really is.

So heres what happened this time. According to the Council on American-Islamic Relations – thats CAIR for those who dont know, theyre basically the largest Muslim civil rights organization in the country – a Muslim woman was flying on a domestic flight when another passenger looked her dead in the face and told her she was going to “bring the whole plane down.” Just like that. No provocation, no context, no nothing. Just said it to her face like it was a normal thing to say to another human being.

And before anybody in my mentions starts with the “well what happened before that” or “there must be more to the story” – no. There isnt. There never is with these situations. The woman was sitting in her seat. She was wearing hijab. And some passenger decided that was enough of a threat to verbally assault her with a terrorism accusation. Thats the whole story.

This isnt an isolated incident either. NBC News has been documenting cases where Muslim passengers face discrimination on flights, including a recent incident where a Muslim activist was removed from a plane after another passenger complained he felt “uncomfortable.” The patterns are always the same – visibly Muslim person exists, someone decides theyre threatening, the crew either does nothing or makes the Muslim passenger the problem.

CAIR has been tracking these incidents for years now and honestly the pattern never changes. Muslim woman exists in public space. Usually shes wearing hijab or niqab, something that makes her faith visible. Someone – another passenger, sometimes even crew members – decides shes dangerous. The crew either ignores the harassment entirely or somehow makes HER the problem. And nothing, absolutely nothing, happens to the actual aggressor. Its the same story over and over and over again.

The organization is now calling for a full investigation from the airline, which they havent named publicly yet. Theyre demanding accountability not just for the passenger who made the threat but for any crew members who witnessed it and did nothing. Because yeah, telling someone theyre gonna “bring the whole plane down” is a threat. Thats not ambiguous. Thats not a misunderstanding. Thats a direct accusation of terrorism based on nothing but what someone looks like.

What really gets me about these stories – and Ive written about too many of them at this point – is how normalized this has become. VICE has published guides specifically for Muslim travelers on what to do when they face discrimination at airports, which tells you everything about how common this is. We just accept that Muslim Americans, especially women who are visibly Muslim, have to deal with this kind of constant harassment and discrimination as part of their daily lives in public spaces.

I talked to a friend of mine who flies frequently for work – shes Muslim, wears hijab – and she told me she mentally prepares for something to happen every single time she gets on a plane. EVERY time. She has a whole routine. She tries to board early so she can get settled before anyone can say anything. She keeps her headphones in even when shes not listening to anything. She avoids eye contact. All these little strategies just to get through a flight without being harassed.

Thats not okay. Thats not normal. And we shouldnt be treating it like it is. CAIR wants policies in place that actually protect Muslim passengers instead of treating them as the problem when they report harassment. Is that really asking too much? In 2020? After everything?