The Internet Is Divided After Man Loses It On Plane, Accuses Woman Of Stealing His Apple Charger

A viral video of a man confronting a woman on a plane over an alleged stolen Apple charger has the internet divided. The initial footage appears to be an open and shut case of a man rightfully upset confronting a thief.

Taking a deeper dive into the situation, however, reveals there's much more to the story here and this is anything but an open and shut case. There were flight changes, an empty plane, a snitch, and even a cat.

The viral video was posted on TikTok a week ago and at the moment has 14.5 million views. The person behind the camera is the man who believes he's been wronged, and he's a little charged up himself.

Passengers board a JetBlue flight from Terminal B of LaGuardia Airport (LGA) in the Queens borough of New York, US, on Sunday, April 7, 2024. Photographer: Angus Mordant/Bloomberg

As a woman boards the plane, he confronts her about his missing charger. When asked, the woman immediately says, "Yeah, I have it, I think."

The guy, instead of giving her a second to get the charger out of her bag, starts berating her for taking the charger without permission. Granted, traveling in general, even without delayed flights and changing planes, sometimes brings out the worst in people.

That said, she said she was going to give it back and didn't make a big deal about it. There was really no reason to keep it going at that point, but this guy couldn’t help himself. Now, during the exchange, an interesting detail emerges.

She didn't just grab the charger when he wasn’t looking. He had gotten off the plane and left it behind. That seems to be corroborated by the fact that she's getting on the plane with all of her stuff.

If that's the case, it would fall into "finders keepers," not stealing in my book. Here's that initial viral video.

The viral video of the stolen phone charger needed a follow-up

Not a great look here by Ed. He starts in on another guy and his wife even seems to have had enough before he stops recording. He tells the woman that she's going to be famous on TikTok after she gives him a thumbs up.

Before handing the charger in question back to the man and after repeatedly listening to him complain about how the charger was stolen from him, she asks a very important question, "Is it stealing if you get it back?"

So far, we're looking at a "finders keepers" situation to me. But let's hear Ed out. He decided to make the most of his stolen Apple charger claim with a follow-up video.

In part two of the Apple charger drama, he explains that a fellow passenger had approached him to let him know that the woman had taken his charger as she got off of the flight.

He wanted to know why the woman didn't hand it over the the flight attendants and claimed that he had an option to press charges, but didn't because he didn't want to delay the flight any longer.

Believe or not, this wasn’t the end of the phone charger drama. The woman, Vanessa, decided to hop on TikTok to give her side of the story and, surprisingly, after hearing it, people jumped from his side to hers.

Vanessa starts her video off by saying that this took place over a year ago. That's another strike for Ed. Why did he hold onto it for more than a year before posting it?

She then added that she has been bombarded with harassment and flooded with death threats since the video was posted. Now to her side of things.

Vannessa said, "For context, this charger was found on the ground of an emptying flight where we were told to remove all possessions, because we didn't know if we would be getting back onto the same plane."

The woman in the viral stolen phone charger video tells her side of the story

Well, those details would have been nice to know before the claims of a stolen charger were being tossed around. After picking it up, and not unplugging it as claimed, she told a flight attendant about it.

They couldn’t take it because "they cannot be liable for passenger possessions."

It was a long day at the airport with the delays, and she was caught off guard by the man confronting her and the last thing she was worried about was the charger she had found on the ground of the plane.

"I was worried about my 20 pound cat that had just thrown up at the gate," Vanessa said. She added that there were no options to press charges and the flight attendants told him to calm down, or he would be removed from the plane.

And just like that, we have a clear winner. I was willing to call this one "finders keepers" and take her side due to the fact that the guy was kind of a jerk and had left the charger behind.

But she's traveling with a cat. As much as it pains me to side with the "pull your phone out to confront someone guy," I can't take the side of the "travels with pet woman."

Let me know whose side you're on sean.joseph@outkick.com. And save the pro travel with pets emails, you're not going to change my mind on that.

I get that there are legit reasons to do so, but this doesn't appear to be one of them.