Man thrown off plane for wearing a thong instead of facemask compares himself to Rosa Parks

Adam Jenne hopes to change history with ‘absurd’ facemask protest on United flight

A Florida man was thrown off a plane and has been banned from UnitedAirlines for wearing underwear on his head instead of a facemask on a flight. He compares his actions to those of civil rights activist Rosa Parks.

Adam Jenne was dressed in an anti-Biden Let’s go Brandon T-shirt and wore the skimpy red g-string over his head and face while travelling to Washington DC from the Fort Lauderdale Airport.

Mr Jeene said it’s not the first time he’s pulled such a stunt; he’s allegedly done it more than a dozen times, but on all the other flights he made it to his final destination.

“Every single flight has been met with different reactions from the flight crew,” Mr Jenne told NBC2. “Some with a wild appreciation, others confrontational.”

This time the TSA and airport security were called and Mr Jenne was kicked off the plane.

Comparing himself to “first lady of civil rights” Rosa Parks, who refused to move for a white bus passenger, during segregation in 1955, Mr Jeene said: “Everything else that has sparked change in this country has come from everyday people, Rosa Parks was nobody famous, she changed the course of history.”

According to Mr Jenne, around a dozen people also left the plane after his anti-face mask protest. One man asked the cabin crew, “Did he just get kicked off for wearing a mask? I’m out of here, forget it. I’m out of here.”

Mr Jenne thanked those who protested with him: “Thank you to them, because they saw something, an injustice, something that didn’t make sense, and they stood up,” he said.

“It’s nonsense, it’s all nonsense, Covid doesn’t know that we’re cruising at altitude. It’s stupid, the whole thing is theatre,” he said.

“I think the best way to illustrate absurdity is with absurdity,” added Mr Jenne, who got a refund on his ticket and planned to try his thong stunt on another carrier the following day.

All airline carriers have to comply with a federal mask mandate across the US.

“The customer clearly wasn’t in compliance with the federal mask mandate,” United Airlines said in a statement to The Independent, “and we appreciate that our team addressed the issue on the ground prior to takeoff, avoiding any potential disruptions on the air”.

Covid cases are rising across the US, according to John’s Hopkins University there have been 831,017 cases of Covid-19 recorded in the past week. There are also fears that the emergence of the Omricon variant will significantly impact case numbers. According to the CDC, Omicron makes up three per cent of nationwide coronavirus cases.