A Nepal national has been booked for allegedly abusing Air India crew members and breaking the lavatory door onboard the flight. The case was registered by Delhi Police based on the complaint of cabin supervisor Aditya Kumar.
As per the FIR, a passenger, who was onboard the Air India flight that took off from Toronto, changed his seat and then hurled abuses at crew members in economy class.
The passenger, Mahesh Singh Pandit, stopped only after the pilot in command gave him an oral warning. However, Singh was caught with a cigarette lighter inside the lavatory after the smoke alert went off, ANI reported.
“When I opened the door in front of the passenger, he pushed me back and ran to his seat 26F. When I tried to stop him, he pushed me and abused me also. Later he broke the LAV door 3F-RC. Then I informed the captain immediately and as per captain instruction with the help of cabin crew Punit Sharma and other four passengers we tried to restrain him as per SOP,” Aditya told the police.
Ten passengers rushed to help the crew to restrain the accused who also tried to beat some of them, the FIR added.
The case has been registered under sections 323, 506 and 336 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) and 22, 23, 25 Aircraft rules at Delhi’s IGI Police Station.
Several cases of unruly behaviours by passengers inside Air India flights have been reported in the past few months.
On June 24, a man allegedly defecated and urinated inside an Air India flight. He was arrested later.
Last year in November, a man in an inebriated condition allegedly urinated on a woman co-passenger onboard an Air India flight from New York to Delhi. Ten days later, another episode of a “drunk” male passenger allegedly “urinating” on a blanket of a female passenger was reported on Air India’s Paris-New Delhi flight.
The latest data released by the International Air Transport Association (IATA) showed airlines worldwide encountered more number of unruly passengers in 2022 compared to the previous year.
As per the report, one such incident was reported for every 568 flights in 2022, compared to one per 835 flights in 2021.
Non-compliance with flying rules, verbal abuse and intoxication ranked high in the kind of poor behaviour displayed by such fliers around the world last year. Cases of physical abuse were rare but showed an alarming increase of 61% over 2021 with one such incident being reported every 17,200 flights.
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