A passenger on a Virgin Australia flight attacked the pilot (Photo: Tiktok)
A passenger on a Virgin Australia flight (belonging to the Virgin group) was filmed cursing and forcibly grabbing the pilot by his shirt, during a physical altercation that took place at the front of the passenger plane.
Shocked passengers watched the incident unfold in full view of business class and outside the cockpit as the plane waited at Townsville Airport on Wednesday last week.
In the video, the pilot can be heard telling the passenger to "leave" or that they will "get someone", but the situation seemed to escalate further before the pilot announced "you're out mate".
In the video, the passenger could be seen grabbing the pilot's shirt in his fists, while the latter repeatedly tells him to "let go".
The man then shouted as he was pushed back towards the plane door and out of camera range, with the help of a flight attendant and another passenger.
"You f--n idiot," the man could be heard saying, "I didn't do anything!"
After what appeared to be another physical altercation involving the flight attendant, the pilot could be heard giving instructions to "bring the police," and only at this point did the passenger say that he agreed to leave the plane.
The unruly passenger before attacking the pilot (photo: screenshot, Tiktok)
One drink too many
The New York Post reports that the video was uploaded to Tik Tok by a passenger named Ben McKay, who claimed the man had "one drink too many" before their flight to Sydney was about to take off.
He praised the staff for handling the situation "amazingly".
Surfers who responded to the video agreed with him.
A respondent who identified herself as a flight attendant stated that "even though we are trained for this, it is still terrible to deal with it".
She added that the man will be blacklisted by the airline and he will be banned from flying with her for a certain period of time.
Another person added: "The crew did an amazing thing. They shouldn't have had to deal with it... but that flight attendant was absolutely amazing."
Virgin Australia said the passenger was removed from the flight for unruly behavior, and the police were called to the airport.
Restrictions were placed on the man regarding future flights.
"The safety of our passengers and crew is our number one priority and we have zero tolerance for any type of unruly behavior on Virgin Australia flights," a spokeswoman said.
"Incidents (of this kind) are referred to the police if necessary."
Against this background, it should be noted that before Christmas, the Australian Federal Police launched what is known as "Operation Sleigh", which included the expansion of patrols during the holiday period at nine airports in the country to deal with cases of drunkenness and offensive behavior.
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