A Lufthansa flight from Mexico City to Frankfurt made an unscheduled stop in Newfoundland recently, after a passenger yelled, swore and then urinated in the aisle of the plane. As eGlobal Travel News reported, passenger Olaf Sverri Peterson of the Faroe Islands “may have been drinking before the incident.”
The 45 year old Peterson was arrested by Canadian police and charged with engaging in behaviour that endangered a plane in flight, public disturbance, public indecency and interfering with the lawful use of public property.
The incident evokes memories of the dark days of ‘air-rage’ and related disturbances. The worst period was in the mid-to-late 1990s, but tightened security that airlines imposed after 9/11 has served to deter some of the most outrageous in-flight behaviour.
Notorious incidents from the pre-9/11 days include the bourbon-swigging female heroin addict who kicked, headbutted and spat at a British Airways crew after they refused to give her more alcohol. Her hangover came complete with 15 months in jail.
Worse followed in 1999 when a drunk ran amok through the cabin of a British Airways Boeing 747 and broke an inside window before crew and passengers overpowered him. The plane was diverted to India.
In another incident from the late 1990s, a violent passenger died aboard a Hungarian airliner after cabin crew and passengers strapped him to his seat and injected him with tranquillizers.
By 1998, a report by the International Cabin Crew Association showed a 400% rise in air rage incidents in just three years. There was the passenger on a Northwest Airlines flight who removed his trousers and “simulated having sex with the back of his seat”, and the man travelling to Honolulu who stripped naked, urinated on seats and punched any passenger who objected.
It took a New York investment banker to perform perhaps the most disgusting act ever seen at 35,000 feet. Gerard Finneran screamed obscenities and shouted for more alcohol during a Buenos Aires-to-New York flight. When he didn’t get the booze, Finneran defecated on a first-class food trolley. He was fined $50,000.
