DALLAS - A shouting match over passenger rights erupted Tuesday on an American Airlines flight bound to Dallas from Austin.

Weather in Dallas delayed takeoff and the plane sat on the flight line for more than two hours. Passengers started yelling that they wanted to get off.

"Some of the passengers, I guess, got agitated," said Aaron Blakey, a soldier who was on the flight after returning from time spent serving in Iraq. "We were on the runway waiting forever."

But just as the flight was about to take off, things got really heated.

"We were just about to take off and, and some of the people said, 'No, no, I want to get off now,'" said Rob Walters, a passenger on the flight. "That's where the tenseness started."

Going back to the gate meant they would lose their spot for takeoff. While most wanted to sit and wait, others demanded to go back. Witnesses said shouting broke out and that one man ran down the aisle towards the cockpit.

The pilot eventually returned to the gate, which delayed the flight another hour.

"It seemed kind of ridiculous that the vast majority, say 95 percent of the people, were ready to take off; let's go," Walters said. "And yet the five percent were able to dictate what happened."

American Airlines said the pilot did the right thing.

The tense situation came after critics attacked American two years ago for stranding passengers on the plane for up to eight hours. It led to reforms, including American changing its policy in 2007. The change allows passengers to get off before four hours of waiting on the plane.

Now, some passengers have expressed concern that the reform may have gone too far.

"It's from one extreme to the other," Walters said. "I mean, if were ten minutes from taking off, let's take off.

The flight landed at D/FW four hours late.

E-mail jbetz@wfaa.com