A United Airlines pilot was caught on surveillance video hacking away at a parking gate with an ax at Denver International Airport.
The video shows the United Airlines pilot walking toward the employee parking lot gate earlier this month with an ax in his hand before briefly stopping as if to check out which parking gate he’s going to target.
About a minute into the video, the pilot is then seen walking toward the gate farthest from him before he starts hacking away at the gate. A person inside a pickup truck can be seen in the video just sitting still as the man hacks away.
Twenty seconds into the video, the pilot then stops as he realizes that the ax wasn’t working because it was still being covered by its sheath.
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After removing the sheath, the pilot resumes his hacking for about another 15 seconds before the gate dislodges and moves out of the way to allow the driver of the pickup to pass through.
Surveillance video shows the pilot grabbing the sheath from the floor and heading toward the parking lot. A security guard follows him into an empty field, where he was taken into custody.
In a statement, a spokesperson for United Airlines said the pilot had been “removed from the schedule and is on leave while United conducts an international investigation."
This story was originally published by Óscar Contreras at Scripps News Denver.
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