Terror on tourist flight-from-hell to Phuket as seven people struggle to tackle air rage ‘hooligan’ wanting to open door at 33,000ft – wrapping him in cling film to subdue him before emergency
Seven people restrained a drunk air passenger by wrapping him in cling film when he attempted to open the door of a packed plane to Thailand at 33,000 feet, in the first of three security incidents on the flight-from-hell.
The crew members and tourists pinned down and restrained the Russian ‘wild hooligan’ in a gangway before the plane was able to make an emergency landing in Uzbekistan, where he was handed over to police.
Astonishingly, there were two further security incidents on the so-called flight-from-hell once it took off again for Phuket.
A blazing row between two ‘drunk’ passengers on the no-alcohol flight from Moscow led to them being forcibly separated.
Then a man insisted on flouting the law and smoking in the toilet, leading to him being handed over to Thai police when the Nordwind Airline Boeing 777 reached the Thai island.
Trouble on the flight began several hours after takeoff from Moscow when terrified passengers watched in horror as an intoxicated man in his 30s tried to open an emergency door at 33,000 ft.
Elena Demidova said in a video filmed on board: ‘The first half of the flight was normal, but then I noticed strange activity among stewardesses.
‘People in the cabin were whispering to each other that a doctor was called for somebody. Then on the intercom they asked if anybody had plastic food wrap.’
After the cling film was located, it was used to subdue the ‘drunk and rowdy’ passenger after attempts by a doctor to calm him failed.
Demidova said: ‘Suddenly the sign “fasten your seat belts” began to flash. Why? Minutes later the captain explained a passenger in the rear of the plane was drunk and rowdy.
‘A doctor tried to calm him. Then tougher measures were taken. They tried to use plastic food wrap to tie him. Seven people were holding him, but nothing helped.’
Russian Transport Police confirmed the ‘air hooligan’ was handed to Uzbek police in Tashkent.
He had ‘abused the stewardesses and made the flight really uncomfortable for other passengers’, said Elena Markovskaya, an official with the Moscow Multi-Regional Transport Investigative Department, reported Rosbalt.
After a four hour delay in Tashkent, the flight continued.
A video shows part of the second incident – a row between two allegedly drunk passengers who were eventually separated by the crew.
Then in another video, Demidova said: ‘This man was smoking in the plane’s toilet.
‘The stewardesses are sorting it out right now. He was taken away from the plane by Thai police.’
