(Photo : Reuters)

American airlines removed a male passenger from its flight after he wore a gas mask, Fox News reports. The man caused some passengers to panic and it led to a delay after he refused to remove the mask. 

With the issues surrounding the spiking number of infected persons with Coronavirus, it is not surprising why people who were on the flight panicked. One of the passengers posted a photo of the man who wore the mask before he was escorted off the plane.

Joseph Say, one of the passengers and the man who posted the photo on social media, said that some of the passengers on board were worried because the man might have snuck something on the plane and that the man was wearing a gas mask for his own safety.

Say told one of the news outlets, "What we heard from the lady sitting next to him as he said he wanted to make a statement. I don't know what the statement was," he added, "I'm not sure what his goals were."

In a separate interview, Say said that the incident happened just before the flight took off on its scheduled flight from Dallas-Forth worth International Airport. Say recalled: "I had a seat in the back. I was sitting there. I was talking to the lady next to me. We heard a little bit of commotion. I looked up and saw a guy coming onto the plane wearing a full gas mask, which was kind of odd. He didn't have a filter, which I thought was more strange."

Say also said that people started to talk about the man and wanted him out of the plane immediately. Moreover, people on the plane wanted to know the reasons why the man wore a gas mask on the plane in the first place.

Joseph Say also said: "What we heard from the lady sitting next to him as he said he wanted to make a statement. I don't know what the statement was. I'm not sure what his goals were. To me, it seemed inconsistent. You couldn't see his face. You couldn't identify any features on him. People were worried he had sneaked something on-board and that he had the mask for his own safety."

Moreover, until now it is still not known why the man wore a mask and if there were any charges filed against him. The American Airlines Flight 2212 took off 50 minutes later than its scheduled flight from DFW International Airport just before 7:00 p.m. and it arrived at Bush Intercontinental Airport at around 9:07 p.m.

A news outlet asked American Airlines about the situation on Friday and a representative said: "The passenger was rebooked on the next flight to Houston, and flew without the mask on yesterday evening." 

It was found that the man who wore the gas mask had previously flown from Los Angeles to Dallas and was not wearing a mask during that time.