A Southwest Airlines flight was reportedly delayed after a passenger spilled rice in the aisle

• A Southwest Airlines flight was allegedly delayed after a passenger spilled food in the aisle. 
• Passenger Jennifer Schaper said the crew refused to leave the gate until someone cleaned the spill.
• A Southwest spokesperson told Insider they didn't receive any reports regarding the rice debacle. 

It's been a tough few days for people eating on airplanes. 

On April 15, Southwest Airlines passenger Jennifer Schaper posted a photo to Twitter of what appeared to be a pile of rice scattered in the plane's aisle. In a series of tweets, Schaper said no one owned up to the spill — causing the flight to be delayed. 

"I didn't even notice the spill until the attendant began yelling about it," Schaper told Insider. "Once she began to chastise the plane, most people looked away awkwardly — she went up and down the aisles asking who spilled the rice and repeated several times that we would not be leaving until someone cleaned it."

—Jennifer Schaper (@jenschap) April 15, 2023

Schaper, who is a historian, was returning to Houston from a conference in Atlanta. The flight was delayed before the rice debacle, she said, adding that flight attendants seemed on edge even before the spill.

In a statement to Insider, a spokesperson for Southwest said they hadn't received any reports or specifics surrounding Schaper's post. 

"It's not unusual for a flight attendant to tidy the aircraft prior to departure," the representative added.

Schaper, who said that she did not spill the rice, told Houston news outlet KHOU that the flight attendant was "really, really mad about it." According to Schaper, the employee cleaned up the mess after none of the passengers would admit to the spill.

"Most of the passengers were pretty baffled by the sheer ridiculousness of the situation," Schaper told Insider.

Schaper's posts came just a day before a professional baseball player went viral after complaining that his wife had to clean up a mess left by his 2-year-old daughter on a flight.

—Anthony Bass (@AnthonyBass52) April 16, 2023

In a tweet with nearly 80 million views, Toronto Blue Jays pitcher Anthony Bass shared a photo of his children sitting on a United Airlines flight, surrounded by a mess of popcorn, which he claims a flight attendant asked his wife to clean up.

The tweet prompted a heated debate over parents' responsibilities while flying, with one person adding: "the rule is clean up after your own gremlins."