Chemical engineer fired after drunk homophobic and racist rant on plane goes viral
Former GlaxoSmithKline employee Zachary Easterly captured on the viral video. (Twitter)
A man has been fired from his chemical engineer job after getting kicked off his flight for spouting homophobic and racist slurs while “a little intoxicated”.
Zachary Easterly was fired from global biopharma company GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) for his actions on the flight after announcing he worked there in an abusive rant littered with homophobic and racist slurs.
The video, which surfaced on TMZ, went viral on Twitter with one of the shared clips attracting 1.6 million views.
A disgusting homophobe gets kicked off his flight from Philadelphia for harassing the person seated beside him. The man has a huge meltdown on the way out bragging about his job at GlaxoSmithKline as a chemical engineer… Probably not for long sir. pic.twitter.com/NVir4Oj4Hn
— 🥀_ Imposter_🥀 (@Imposter_Edits) September 2, 2022
It shows Easterly on the plane shouting at fellow passengers and the flight attendant as he calls passengers f****ts and even exclaims that he’s racist because he’s a white male with a black bag.
He goes on to say: “You’re kicking me off the plane because I’m racist. I didn’t do anything…”
Easterly then admits in the clip that he is “a little intoxicated”, before he lashes out at a passenger, saying “f**k you too”.
When the polite flight attendant attempts to help him find his bag, he arrogantly remarks: “It’s a better bag than most of y’all can afford.”
As he is escorted off the plane, he calls everyone on the flight “liberal f*****ts” and says he hopes they “crash the f***ing plane”.
But just before the video ends, he announces he is a chemical engineer at GSK. Well, was.
He brags in the video that he is going to quit “this week”. GSK fired him before he had the chance.
Following the outburst, which occurred on a flight scheduled from Philadelphia to Dallas, GSK took to Twitter to confirm Easterly had been sacked.
GSK told PinkNews: “On Wednesday last week, GSK was notified of an incident involving an employee on an internal flight to Dallas in the United States.
“We immediately conducted an investigation and, as of Thursday last week, he is no longer employed at GSK. The person’s remarks were reprehensible and do not reflect our company culture.
“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 behaviour and provides equal opportunity for all persons.”
A later video uncovered by TMZ shows, according to the MailOnline, captures Easterly shouting the N-word at people around him as he’s escorted off the plane and back to the terminal.
Easterly makes it off of the plane and speaks to a man who says he’s a manager.
He then tells the manager “I’m 10 times your IQ” because he’s a chemical engineer, before calling out the racist slur multiple times in front of Black employees.
He can be heard telling one person in an aggressive manner that he will pull his pistol and kill their family after they confronted him.
He continued: “I’ll pull my knife out and slit your f***ing* throat.”
The horrific video comes to an end when two men brawl with Easterly and pull him down to the floor.
Video footage was captured by onlookers both on the plane and in the terminal building.
PinkNews has contacted Philadelphia police for additional comment.
At the end of last year, PinkNews reported that homophobic and transphobic hate crimes had surged after Covid restrictions were eased.
