- A Ryanair flight turned back shortly after take-off after an argument escalated.
- A passenger told The Sun that a man asked to change seats to sit with his family.
- The incident caused an overnight delay as passengers had booked rooms at hotels.
A Ryanair flight was forced to turn back after an argument broke out shortly after take-off.
The journey to London from Agadir, Morocco, took only about half an hour before returning to Marrakech, according to Flightradar24.
“We were only in the air for 36 minutes before we had to make an unexpected landing,” one anonymous passenger told The Sun.
“It was like a flight from hell,” they added. “And it all escalated from a passenger wanting to change seats.”
The newspaper reported that a man asked another passenger to move so he could sit with his wife and young children. The woman refused and the man began threatening her.
Video footage obtained by The Sun shows passengers shouting at each other as crew try to calm them down. One man is heard saying: “I’m going to punch you in the jaw.”
Arguments over whether a passenger should change seats to accommodate a family are not uncommon, but they rarely escalate to this extent.
Incidents involving unruly passengers have reached new highs since the pandemic. Federal Aviation Administration statistics show that 2024 is expected to continue the downward trend in incidents, but still higher than in 2020.
Another passenger became ill during the flight, a Ryanair spokesperson said in a statement shared with Business Insider. Upon landing, airport doctors determined they were unfit to fly, but they “refused to disembark and became violent toward crew.”
According to the statement, it took two hours to remove the disruptive passengers with the help of military police. As a result, Ryanair’s crew reached their maximum working hours and the flight had to be delayed until the next day as the passengers had booked hotel rooms, the spokesman said.
“We sincerely apologise to passengers for this diversion and the subsequent delay caused by a small group of disruptive passengers, which was beyond Ryanair’s control,” they added.
News Source : www.businessinsider.com
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