File photo of a Ryanair Boeing 737-8AS aircraft is reflected in a window as it prepares to land at London Gatwick Airport, near Crawley, southern England, on September 26, 2023. (Photo by Ben Stansall / AFP)
Doha, Qatar: A request to switch seats before take-off led to a mid-air brawl and panic among passengers prompting the airlines to divert and make emergency landing.
Footage published by the Sun showed the scene inside a Ryanair flight to London that was forced to divert to Marrakech within 30 minutes of take-off last week on July 3, 2024.
Flight RUK3034 was preparing for take-off from Agadir, Morocco, when a man in his 20s reportedly requested a woman sitting with her daughter if he could switch seats to be with his wife and kids.
The woman allegedly refused which prompted the man to start threatening her.
When the flight was 30,000 feet in the sky, and after the seat belt sign was turned off, the husband of the female passenger who was threatened came to his wife's defence that ended up with both the passengers throwing punches at each other.
Since one of the families was part of the larger group, other passengers started to join in.
"Seeing the whole scenario, kids started crying, another female passenger had a panic attack and began screaming," an unnamed passenger told the Sun describing it as the "flight from hell."
The scenes turned further chaotic when a male passenger allegedly fell ill, as a result of which the cabin crew had to administer oxygen before landing.
The flight was diverted to Marrakech, where it made an emergency landing, medics and police boarded the aircraft, the latter detaining nine passengers involved in the brawl.
The male passenger who fell ill was deemed unfit to fly by the medics; but he refused to disembark and turned abusive towards cabin crew. Police again had to board the flight to remove the passenger.
It took over two hour for the chaos to subside, and by then the crew reached their “permitted flying hours”. The remaining 200 passengers were taken to a local hotel and booked onto a flight next morning. However, the morning flight was also cancelled and passenger only arrived Thursday evening, July 4, 2024.
A Ryanair spokesperson confirmed the series of events and apologised for the diversion and subsequent delay "due to disruptive passenger" adding that this was out of airline's control, added the Sun.
