An allegedly drunk airline passenger caused such chaos on a recent easyJet flight that pilots were forced to make an emergency landing, The New York Post reported.
Flight U28235 left London’s Gatwick Airport bound for Greece’s Kos International on Tuesday afternoon. Shortly after departure, the plane hit some turbulence, which significantly unsettled one passenger who had allegedly consumed several whiskey cocktails.
As seen in videos posted to social media, the unidentified man left his seat as the plane cruised at 30,000 feet and proceeded to berate his fellow passengers, calling the Airbus A320 “rubbish.” After exchanging harsh words with a few of his fellow passengers, the man reportedly broke the plane’s intercom system and tussled with the flight crew before he was wrestled back into his seat and detained. The entire incident was so disruptive that pilots were forced to divert to Germany, where they landed at Munich International one hour and 44 minutes after takeoff.
Video posted to TikTok shows law enforcement officials boarding the plane and taking the man into custody as the cabin vociferously boos. “Get off, you loser!” one passenger shouts from the back of the aircraft as he displays his middle finger.
@charlotte_keen1 Live emergnecy landing to munich #fyp #easyjet #travel
♬ original sound - Charlotte
In a statement to NYP, easyJet confirmed that the incident was the result of a “passenger behaving disruptively onboard.” The statement continued: “Safety is easyJet’s highest priority and our cabin crew are trained to assess and act quickly and appropriately in all situations to ensure that the safety of the flight and other passengers is not compromised at any time. While such incidents are rare, we take them very seriously and do not tolerate abusive or threatening behavior onboard.”
Last week, Ryanair CEO Michael O’Leary suggested that airports should limit the sale of alcoholic beverages to passengers to avoid incidents such as this, allowing only two drinks before boarding.
"It’s not that easy for airlines to identify people who are inebriated at the gate, particularly if they are boarding with two or three others," O'Leary explained. "As long as they can stand up and shuffle they will get through. Then when the plane takes off we see the misbehavior.
"We don’t want to begrudge people having a drink,” O’Leary continued. “But we don’t allow people to drink [and] drive, yet we keep putting them up in aircraft at 33,000 feet."
