Being on a plane can be a nuisance on its own, but when there is an unruly passenger, it goes from an annoyance to a potential danger. On a Jet2 flight, a passenger was so belligerently drunk and rude to the staff that the plane was going to be diverted. Then hope arrived in the form of an eight-year-old soccer fan. Phoenix Rose and his father were cutting their vacation in Turkey short. They had to catch a flight home to Manchester due to a family emergency. During the flight, a passenger had too much to drink before boarding. She even had her open bottle of whiskey confiscated. This caused the irate passenger to disrupt the flight, shouting and swearing at the flight attendants. The passenger became so unruly that the flight attendants made an announcement: The flight would be diverted to remove her from the plane. And a child would lead them Phoenix was desperate to get home to deal with his family emergency. He didn’t want the flight to be diverted and cause a delay. On a whim, he asked a flight attendant if he could sit next to the angry passenger. He asked for only 30 seconds. The flight attendants gave Phoenix a chance. They switched his seat to one next to the unruly passenger. And it worked. “He just took all the control,” James, Phoenix’s father, told BelfastLive. “Phoenix, he got his cards out, he started singing to her this Dance Monkey song.” “She’s screaming, she’s shouting, she’s still being irate. And he starts singing to her, he starts talking about his football to her, talking about her family, asking her about her kids,” James told BBC News. “I’m sort of sat there in the end and I’m thinking to myself, thank god that Phoenix is with me because if he wasn’t, I don’t think I would have been able to handle it.” View this post on Instagram The young master of de-escalation Knowingly or instinctively, Phoenix practiced effective de-escalation techniques while talking to the passenger. This included finding common ground, listening to her talk about her family, and using several other strategies. Phoenix even calmly reminded her of the consequences. He told the passenger that she could be arrested if she couldn’t calm down, but quickly encouraged her to talk about her kids. For three and a half hours, Phoenix chatted with the passenger. They discussed his love of soccer, his YouTube channel, and their families. Phoenix also showed her his trading cards of Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo. An eight-year-old accomplished what a plane full of adults struggled to do. After the plane landed at its destination, the pilot and flight attendants thanked Phoenix for preventing a forced flight diversion. That would have been costly for both the airline and the passengers in terms of time and money. The passenger was taken into custody by authorities. A spokesperson for Jet2 thanked Phoenix and rewarded him and his dad with free flight vouchers. A little bit of kindness and the wisdom of a young kid were all it took to ease an intense and volatile situation. The post 8-year-old prevents flight from being diverted by soothing unruly passenger with ‘Dance Monkey’ song appeared first on Upworthy.