The Navy SEAL who fatally shot Osama bin Laden is persona non grata on Delta Air Lines.
Former Team Six member Robert J. O’Neill wrote Thursday on Twitter that he had been banned for posting a since-deleted photo Wednesday of himself on a Delta flight without a “dumb ass” mask, saying he wasn’t wearing one because “I’m not a p—y.”
That caused Delta to ban him, he said.
“I just got banned from @Delta for posting a picture. Wow,” Mr. O’Neill wrote.
I just got banned from @Delta for posting a picture. Wow.
— Robert J. O’Neill (@mchooyah) August 20, 2020
The airline had said after the initial photo went viral that it was “reviewing this event.”
“All customers who don’t comply with our mask-wearing requirement risk losing their ability to fly Delta in the future,” spokeswomen Kyla Ross told The New York Post.
Mr. O’Neill expressed bemusement Thursday evening, retweeting a link to The Washington Times story and insisting that he did not, in fact, go maskless. He said he took off the covering only for the photo, which he had described as a joke.
“I had my mask in my lap. Everyone has gone crazy,” he wrote on Twitter.
Reaction on Twitter was mixed, though Delta’s official account, which Mr. O’Neill tagged while noting his ban, had no public comment.
“I just banned @Delta. Next time someone hijacks one of your planes and flies it into a building, don’t ask Seal Team Six to find who did it,” wrote one account identified as that of a Los Angeles Kings hockey fan.
But other social-media denizens criticized Mr. O’Neill because of his initial tweet about masking, which he said, before Delta banned him, was intended as a joke.
“Wow it’s almost like actions have consequences, who knew?” Twitter user James Hagan said.
• Victor Morton can be reached at vmorton@washingtontimes.com.
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