EasyJet passengers staged a mutiny to stop two young black men being thrown off a flight to Malaga yesterday - and instead forced the airline to replace the cabin crew.
Armed police were called to the flight from London's Gatwick Airport to Malaga after it returned to the gate following an altercation between the passengers and cabin crew during its taxi to the runway.
Passengers on the flight say that the Easyjet crew overreacted when the two men ‘huffed’ after they were told to put their shoes on for take-off because they were sitting in an emergency exit row.
When the flight reached the gate a female attendant contacted police to say there were two 'disobedient passengers' on board and four armed officers then entered the plane, confiscating the two men's passports and offloading their luggage.
But the passengers objected en masse, and videos show them telling the men to 'sit down' and 'not get off' while protesting the stewardess' actions.
Following customers' objections to the incident, the captain made a tannoy announcement telling them a replacement crew would be coming on board.
All passengers remained on the flight, including the two men, before it headed to Malaga three hours after its scheduled departure time.
Passengers on board have questioned whether the men’s race played a factor in the crew’s reaction, and said that the two men were previously ‘polite’.
The footage was filmed by Luke Gayle, 28, who said he was sitting three rows in front of the two men approached by the flight attendant.
Speaking to MailOnline, he said the hostess asked the pair to put on their shoes and place their feet underneath the seats, adding: 'They huffed, but that was it.'
He said: 'We were left waiting for two to three hours with no update - it was absolutely disgraceful.
'I am a racial justice ambassador and I kind of know how unconscious racial bias works. Obviously it's very difficult in these situations to say it was a racial issue, it's difficult to prove that, however, was there some kind of unconscious bias there?
'Because it seems so dramatic to call the police and have a plane with 160-odd passengers turn around and be delayed for someone huffing at them. I mean surely as cabin crew you are trained on how to deal with those situations effectively.
The female flight attendant pictured alongside one of the police officers on
