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A Sunwing flight from Montreal to Cuba took an unexpected turn (literally) on Sunday evening when a violent altercation broke out mid-air.
According to authorities, a 40-year-old man began verbally assaulting a fellow passenger shortly after the plane took off. Things got physical shortly after. As a result, the pilot decided to turn the plane around for the safety of other passengers on board and make an immediate return to Montréal-Trudeau Airport.
“What we understand is that the passenger was invited to take the plane, but he was already drunk,” confirmed SPVM Constable Véronique Dubuc in an interview with MTL Blog. “A few minutes after the plane took off, the suspect was disturbing another passenger. They had a verbal altercation, and after that, the suspect committed an assault against the passenger.”
Police officers, who waited for the plane to land, arrested the man on the tarmac. He was transported to a detention center to sober up and is set to appear before a court in May.
Viral video footage from flight WG 652 shows police boarding the aircraft and forcibly removing the intoxicated man from his seat as shocked travellers looked on.
Thankfully, the 41-year-old passenger who was assaulted did not sustain serious injuries.
That wasn’t the end of the ordeal for the rest of the passengers, though. They were hit with a long delay since the flight crew, having reached the maximum working hours limit, could not continue the flight. Sunwing was forced to scramble for a replacement crew, resulting in a delay of nearly seven hours.
The airline took responsibility for the inconvenience, sharing the following statement with MTL Blog:
“The safety and security of passengers and crew is the top priority at Sunwing Airlines and, in accordance with security protocols, the crew decided to return to Montreal Airport to offload the unruly passenger. Due to the time required to offload the passenger and resolve the incident in question, the operating crew’s remaining duty time would not be sufficient to operate the flight and a new crew was assembled to operate the flight, resulting in a flight delay.”
The statement continued, “We apologize for the inconvenience to our passengers on board flight WG 652, and thank them for their patience and understanding during the subsequent delay stemming from this security incident.”
