The man who shouted racist abuse at a black woman on a Ryanair flight blamed it on a 'fit of temper'
- A man recorded shouting racist abuse at a woman on a Ryanair flight appeared on British TV on Friday to defend his actions.
- Mesher was recorded yelling obscenities at a black woman whom he did not want to sit next to while travelling from Barcelona to London on October 19.
- David Mesher told Good Morning Britain that the event was "just a fit of temper" and that he is "not a racist person."
- People took issue with Ryanair's response, which was to relocate the woman. Some threatened to boycott the airline.
- Police in the UK and Spain have said they are investigating what happened.
A man who was recorded shouting racist abuse at an elderly black woman on a Ryanair flight has blamed his actions on a "fit of temper" and denied that he is a racist person.
David Mesher gave an on-camera interview to the "Good Morning Britain" breakfast TV show, broadcast Friday morning in the UK.
He said: "I'm not a racist person by any means" and it was "just a fit of temper at the time."
Mesher was named in the media on Wednesday as the man abusing 77-year-old Delsie Gayle, a black woman who had been assigned the seat next to him for a flight from Barcelona, Spain, to London Stansted Airport on October 19.
In the video Mesher is heard saying: "Don't talk to me in a foreign language you ugly f------ cow," and called Gayle an "ugly black b-----d."
He tells her: ""I don't want to sit next to your face," to "move to another seat," and "if you don't get out the seat I'll push you to another seat."
He did not explain why he did not want to sit next to her.
In the TV interview Mesher said: "I probably lost my temper a bit and ordered her to get up."
Here's the video, shot by fellow passenger David Lawrence. It contains strong, racist language:
The original footage has been watched on YouTube nearly 1,400,000 times as of Friday.
An online petition launched to pressure Ryanair into compensating Gayle for her treatment appeared online shortly after the video went viral, and has so far amassed some 306,000 signatures.
The petition says: "Ryanair failed to remove the man from the flight or to support Mrs Gayle. Instead she was made to move seats whilst the man was given a row to himself."
A number of passengers have threatened to boycott Ryanair as a response to what they see as an insufficiently robust response to Mesher.
During the TV interview Mesher apologised to Gayle. Gayle and her daughter Carol rejected the apology shortly afterwards, the BBC reported on Friday.
Police in both Spain and the UK have said they are investigating the incident. Officers were pictured visiting Mesher's home in Birmingham, England, but have not taken any formal action.