GSK engineer charged with assaulting an air marshal after video of drunken, racist meltdown on PHL flight goes viral
Video of Zachary W. Easterly shouting racist and homophobic taunts aboard an American Airlines flight from Philadelphia to Dallas went viral over the weekend. He faces federal charges.
A chemical engineer with the pharmaceutical giant GlaxoSmithKline has been federally charged with assaulting an air marshal after he was forcibly removed from a flight last week amid a drunken racist and homophobic tirade.
Video of the incident — which occurred Aug. 30 on a Dallas-bound American Airlines flight out of Philadelphia International Airport — went viral over the weekend.
The footage, first obtained by TMZ, showed Zachary W. Easterly, 37, of Etters, York County, hurling insults at flight attendants and passengers alike as they sought to calm him down.
At one point, he sarcastically proclaims he is being labeled a racist because he’s a “white male that picked a black bag.”
Shouting at onlookers, he adds it’s “a better bag than most of y’all can afford” before calling everyone on the flight “liberal f—” and saying he hopes they “crash the f— plane.”
As flight attendants try to guide him off the plane, Westerly boasts that he’s a chemical engineer but plans to quit this week.
“You’re kicking me off the plane because I’m racist,” he says.
But Easterly’s outlandish behavior continued well after the video showing his removal from the flight, according to charging documents filed in federal court in Philadelphia.
An American Airlines manager met the flight attendants escorting Easterly on the boarding tunnel. Easterly allegedly shouted at him that he has “10 times your IQ” before allegedly hurling a racial slur at several Black employees standing nearby.
When another American Airlines employee told him to watch his mouth, Easterly allegedly threatened to slit the man’s throat and vowed to “pull out my pistol and kill your f—g family,” the document states.
Eventually, an air marshal stationed at the airport heard the commotion and responded, identifying himself by showing his badge. Easterly, according to prosecutors, grabbed the marshal by the throat and ripped his badge, which was hanging from a lanyard, off the man’s neck.
The marshal suffered bruises and scratches to his forehead, throat, and right elbow, court filings say.
Easterly faces charges of assaulting a federal officer, punishable by up to a year in prison.
He did not respond to phone calls Tuesday evening. Court filings show he has a history of intoxicated incidents, including convictions in York County for driving under the influence in 2006 and 2018. He pleaded guilty to public drunkenness in 2009.
GlaxoSmithKline, the British pharmaceutical giant with offices in Philadelphia and Montgomery County, confirmed in a statement that Easterly had been an employee but that he’d been fired as soon as his conduct aboard the plane came to light.
“The person’s behavior was reprehensible and does not reflect our company culture,” the statement read. “At GSK, diversity, equity and inclusion is embraced and celebrated and we are committed in policy, principle and practice to maintaining an environment which prohibits discriminatory behavior and provides equal opportunity for all persons.”
Read the complaint: