No, a flight crew did not take a knee and strand the New Orleans Saints

A recent article describing a flight crew taking a knee and leaving the New Orlean Saints stranded on the runway is a fake news story published on another satirical news website. 

"Flight crew takes a knee and walks off, leave New Orleans Saints stranded on runway," read the headline of the story published on dailyfeed.news on Oct. 2, 2017. The article claimed that the pilot and co-pilot of the plane were combat vets who did not take kindly to Saints players partaking in the "Take A Knee" protest and decided to take a knee of their own and exit the plane.

"Looks like the group of thugs should have just considered themselves lucky they’re allowed to make millions for playing a game and stood with respect like they’re told to do in the league rulebook." said the post.

Although the "Take a Knee" protest has been a point of controversy in the past few weeks, there is no evidence that this incident ever took place. (There is also no mention of the national anthem in the 2017 NFL rule book, though a spokesman did confirm the "game operations manual" requires players to stand for the song.)

Featured Fact-check

Donald Trump

stated on October 23, 2024 in a post on X

Vice President Kamala Harris has been “going so far as to call me Adolf Hitler.”

The Saints, who played the Dolphins in London on Oct.2, made a team decision to take a knee during the coin toss then stand during the anthem as "a way to show respect to all," tweeted quarterback Drew Brees.

The article was first published on Oct. 1 to Freedumjunkshun.com, a satirical news site with a format that resembles Christopher Blair’s, TheLastLineOfDefense.org. Blair, a self-proclaimed liberal troll, is known to run a number of joke news sites responsible for publishing stories meant to "mess with conservatives," he told PolitiFact in an email last spring.

The owner of Freedumjunkshun.com is listed as a private registrant, so there is not any definitive proof that Blair is behind this site. But a quick look at the website’s About Us reveals the site referring to itself as "Freedom Crossroad," the name of another website that we found to be run by Blair.

Regardless of its origins, the post claims that a protesting flight crew stranded the Saints. We rate the claim Pants on Fire!