Riot on a LTU flight MUC – BKK Monday night

[N380UA]

In short:

A 45 year old, extremely violent pax caused the flight to return after reaching the Ukraine. The flight was unable to land at MUC and thus diverted to DUS. The very drunk pax had to be escorted by four officers of the federal police. At that time he was cooperative and did not resist arrest. The flight continued on Tuesday morning.

After the drunk pax was detained on the flight, a lady turned around to him and punched him in the face. This in turn was reason enough for other pax to join in the brawl. It was at this time that the skipper decided to return. At the moment no charges were pressed.

Handfeste Randale an Bord: Airbus kehrt um

Ein randalierender Passagier hat in der Nacht zum Dienstag einen mit 212 Fluggästen besetzten Airbus auf dem Weg von München nach Bangkok zur Umkehr gezwungen. Der 45-Jährige sei extrem gewalttätig gewesen, daher habe sich der Kapitän über der Ukraine für den Abbruch des Fluges entschieden, sagte ein LTU- Sprecher in Düsseldorf. Eine Rückkehr nach München sei nicht möglich gewesen, daher sei die Maschine LT 752 in Düsseldorf gelandet.

Der stark alkoholisierte Mann wurde von vier Beamten der Bundespolizei abgeführt. «Bei der Festnahme war er ruhig und leistete keinen Widerstand», sagte Achim Berkenkötter von der Bundespolizei am Düsseldorfer Flughafen. Die übrigen Fluggäste verbrachten die Nacht in Düsseldorfer Hotels. Erst am Dienstagmorgen konnten sie ihre Reise fortsetzen.

Nachdem der Randalierer bereits gefesselt und mit einer Decke «ruhig gestellt» worden war, drohte die Situation dadurch zu eskalieren, dass nach Angaben eines Augenzeugen eine aufgebrachte Passagierin dem Mann einen Faustschlag verpasste. «Als es dadurch auch unter den restlichen Fluggästen zu Tumulten kam und die Crew um die Sicherheit der Passagiere fürchtete, hat sich der Pilot zur Umkehr entschlossen», sagte der 65-jährige Augenzeuge. Noch ist nach Polizeiangaben unklar, welche Strafe und Kosten auf den Randalierer zukommen. (N24.de, dpa)


I'd be pissed too if I had a 24h delay because some idiot had to much to drink. But for a number of pax to get into what otherwise would be described as a bar brawl while in cruse on fl380 is new.

[WHBM]

I would have put down in Ukraine, I think the security authoroties there would have had more of the attitude towards such pax that many of us here would like to see :)

[captjns]

I would have been a pissed (not pissed drunk, but pissed off mad), if the individual at the check in counter, security, gate agent suspected this person to so intoxictated that is would have caused a problem onboard their jet. Usually gate agents want to get rid of these miscreants in the hopes they will sleep it off on the aircraft. These morons are dangerous time bombs waiting to go off. These time bombs usually explode in the face of the flight attendants.

[ZQA297/30]

:ok: Assuming (risky) that the gentleman was at least partly inebriated (i.e. BAC over.20) when he boarded, if it was Manchester, he would have never got past the security check.

[Rainboe]

It's not unknown for the groundstaff to be desperate to pass the problem on to somebody else, very often the flight crew. When we once arrived at JNB for the direct to LHR, one of the check-in supervisors came up and timidly asked the Captain 'We have a passenger who, on the connecting flight down from Harare, got a bit drunk and punched a stewardess in the face! Er......will you take him!' After bursting out laughing we said 'No!' in rather more words than that. I have interviewed and decided to take one of the meekest and apologetic drunks (it's always 'medication' to them) who subsequently turned into a furious objectionable and bizarre monsters at 35,000', demanding to know why he was going to LGW when he wanted to go to BRU.

One thing I learnt over the years- NEVER give them the benefit of the doubt- if they are inebriated, they don't want to fly. Simple.

[captjns]

exactly! If a gate agent lets one of those time bombs on board... get them off! Remember the gate agent may be in charge of the gate during boarding, but the captain is in charge of the red park brake light.

[GlueBall]

The situation would have been less complicated for everyone if the captain had landed in Ukraine, deplaned the pax, refueled, and continued to BKK. :confused:

[sf25]

any idea why they went all the way back to dus instead of offloading him on the way????

[soddim]

Why land to offload him - if he's that drunk it really won't hurt at all.

[Rainboe]

The reasons probably are:
1- Too heavy to land in the Ukraine. Dumping fuel takes time and involves checking on the ground. Unlikely to have engineering cover. A/C grounded?
2- Possibility of crew running out of hours. What to do with hundreds of people- operation would be cancelled
3- Weather Ukraine?

Often the easiest answer is to turn back, offload the crew who would not be able to continue, and arrange quickest alternative means of travel- either on another carrier or standby crew and continue the operation. It is usually the easiest answer and would be done in consultation with the airline ops department. It's not fair to try and second guess the airline's decision based on very limited knowledge. On a flight LHR-NBO, we shut down an engine over Caraffa, the toe of Italy. Would anybody question a decision to return to base? (sorry- after the recent LAX shutdown thread, I forgot there are numerous 'experts' who know better!).

I do occasionally wonder why some flights land when the problem has been contained. I made a cabin crew en masse restrain a passenger and handcuff. Obviously unpleasant for the crew and those passengers around such a berserk individual, but the situation was then contained and we carried on quite happily. I have seen emergency landings carried out with the individual detained and I don't really see why, but then there may be other factors I'm unaware of.

[N380UA]

From the report said, it seams that the unruly pax was detained and did calm down. It was only after a lady, apparently ticked-off at this guy that she punched him in the face, subsequently all hell brook loose and a number of pax joined in the fight. I believe that this situation certainly was not contained. In fact, if it was so as described in the article, one could easily even conceive mutiny by the pax?

The decision to abort the flight was the only reasonable IMHO. To return to MUC was equally reasonable; WX, max. weight, duty time etc., but more important the unruly pax, presumably Germans can and will be handled by their own legal system.

No doubt that the Ukrainians would have taken care of them, but why start something to such an extend whereas the state may have to get involved if you can handle it in house?

[GroundScot]

landing in the ex-soviet countries to offload drunks is not a good idea..

The airports nrmally demand cash for handling/fuel/transport before they will do anything

and

the police are so lowly paid, they can be bribed with such a little money - they guy would have been on his way back to germany the next day on LH deported - at LTUs costs......

think he made the right call in going back to Germany......

[MrFire]

where does the cia take them?:suspect:

[ExSimGuy]

This is getting out of hand:uhoh: It's getting so a "responsible" pax is worried about taking a couple of beers in the airport bar before going thru security:eek:

Many's the time (in my younger days!) I was well over the "driving limit" when flying as a passenger, but never once did I have any tendancy to attack other pax or CC:confused: (or give the CC any other reason to think me a "problem" - never had them refuse me another G&T or whatever on the flight either)

These days I like to get to the airport, have a few beers in the bar, and sleep through the flight (epecially as many of the sectors that I fly are long-haul, "red-eye" sectors. I also frequently have ,long connection times - what better to do with these than take a good book to the bar and have a few drinks.

This has never resulted in me being in the slightest aggressive, but now I worry that I might have a slight whiff of alcohol, and some over-enthusiastic security (or gate) agent will decide that I have to spend another 24 hours in the airport:(

I don't get so drunk that I'd have a problem evacuating (I would argue that I don't get drunk!) Just enough to get me relaxed and unwound after the hassles and frustrations of getting from the airport car-park to the cabin, in these modern times!

Take it out on the hooligans, Civil Servants who can't hold their booze, "Ragers", but please leave the average well-behaved, sensible (non-swearing-at-the-CC) pax to have a few drinks without worrying that they will get refused boarding for 2, 3, 4 pints of the stuff that passes for "beer" in the average airport bar!

(and I fully support CC who have had to deal with drunken - or otherwise - abusive pax . . . . . but it wasn't me!! . . . or anyone else with enough brain cells to be worthy of occupying he gene pool)

[Self Loading Freight]

If the airlines and airports insist on selling us booze at every possible opportunity, I think the degree of shock they can muster when someone goes off on one must be somewhat limited. Everyone has the responsibility for their own actions, and short of insisting on sobriety at all times there's not much that can be done. I feel for the cabin crew who have to display the skills of a professional barkeeper as well as being diplomats, department store sales staff, waiters, medics, childminders and... now, what was that other thing? Oh yes, in charge of the safety of hundreds of strangers in a very variable situation.

I'm not sure that those areas of the world where alcohol is banned have a much better safety/customer relations record, tbh.

R