A heavily intoxicated passenger had to be taped to a seat by fellow passengers after he attempted to storm the cockpit on a recent S7 Airlines flight in Russia.
According to the Mirror, the unidentified man, who is in his 50s, became aggressive with cabin crew during the trip from Mineralnye Vody to Novosibirsk, demanding to “have a word” with the captain.
Drunk passenger duct-taped to seat ‘after trying to break into cockpit mid-flight’https://t.co/QASeVaQoyb pic.twitter.com/UhcHlNKBvU
— Daily Mirror (@DailyMirror) December 17, 2019
Other passengers sprang into action when the man tried to access the cockpit, taping him down to a seat in business class. One witness aboard the Airbus A320 described the man as a “wild bear.”
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The flight landed without incident and was met by authorities, who arrested the man on charges of violating public order.
“Officers brought the man to the police station but he continued his wild behavior. He verbally abused the duty policemen and tried to attack them,” a spokesperson for Russia’s Interior Ministry told the Mirror.
The man, who claimed to not remember the outburst, faces as many as five years in prison.
Recent data from the International Air Transport Association (IATA) found that disruptive passengers are becoming a growing problem for air travel, with one out of every 1,053 flights in 2017 reporting a case of unruliness, up from one out of every 1,424 flights in 2016.
