W.r.t the comment above, i.e.. '
A seriously inexperienced crew'..........
It would be interesting to compare the crew’s level of aeronautical experience ( one would imagine that it’s 'years' ) with that of the folks involved in this 'fracas' and / or of those making comments of this nature.
For all manner of reasons Captains are typically loathe to shout “Mayday”, however when they do it’s usually because they genuinely believe that the vessel requires immediate assistance as the occupants therein are in peril of their lives.
Accordingly, whatever happened onboard flight AEU308 must indeed have been pretty bad that it required this level of urgency.
Of course one can be quite sure that, once parked upon the ramp at Cardiff airport, the perpetrators were only to keen to suggest that there had been ‘an over-reaction’ – after all, as a result of their actions one would imagine that they’re almost certainly looking at jail sentences – and so perhaps it’s very much a case of “Well, they would say that, wouldn’t they !”
Verbal or physical assaults upon the crew of any public transport vehicle are completely repugnant and as such we can be thankful that our judiciary are stamping down hard on the perpetrators.
Ps. Earthmover, w.r.t. 'Flying is a serious business...' - well said !