Drunk on Ryanair Riga- Dublin - flight diverted.

Henry Ford III

I hope this hasn't been covered beforehand.

Crew did well but how did he get on the bus in the first place?

martinsvi

In what way crew did well? I see a bunch of brave passengers taking matters in their own hands whilst cabin crew is nowhere to be seen.. Of course once passengers have secured the plane, a tiny little kid in Ryanair uniform shows up to stop the filming .. I hope they would do better in an emergency!

Very poor effort from this crew, have seen quite a lot of pax going mad over different airlines over the years, never have I seen crew completely avoiding confrontation like this

VeVeX

I'd say he had more than alcohol taken.

corsav6

martinsvi wrote: »

In what way crew did well? I see a bunch of brave passengers taking matters in their own hands whilst cabin crew is nowhere to be seen.. Of course once passengers have secured the plane, a tiny little kid in Ryanair uniform shows up to stop the filming .. I hope they would do better in an emergency!

Very poor effort from this crew, have seen quite a lot of pax going mad over different airlines over the years, never have I seen crew completely avoiding confrontation like this

This is exactly how I seen it too. Some tool off his face, passengers take control of the situation and then the big hard man from Ryanair, who avoided the real problem, promptly tells a passenger to stop filming.
Poor show from Ryanair staff, well done to the passengers for taking control.

Tenger

I was told by a mate that EI actually checked pax at the boarding gate on Dublin-Riga flights. All alcohol was confiscated until landing and anyone drunk was prevented from boarding.

EDIT: To respond to martinsvi.....I know that my anecdote is from 3-4 years ago.

martinsvi

Tenger wrote: »

I was told by a mate that EI actually checked pax at the boarding gate on Dublin-Riga flights. All alcohol was confiscated until landing and anyone drunk was prevented from boarding.

your friend has an impressive memory, EI stopped Riga service ages ago..

To be fair, similar incidents are frequent on any route/airline, I think alcohol removal from tax free airport shops is long overdue

fits

martinsvi wrote: »

your friend has an impressive memory, EI stopped Riga service ages ago..

To be fair, similar incidents are frequent on any route/airline, I think alcohol removal from tax free airport shops is long overdue

really? I take over fifty flights a year, including around that part of the world, and have never seen an incident like that.

martinsvi

fits wrote: »

really? I take over fifty flights a year, including around that part of the world, and have never seen an incident like that.

It depends whether your flight goes to "that part" of the world with quite a lot of lads from "this part" of the world heading to or returning from their booze-cruise my I add.. although I don't think its cheap or popular anymore..

avhearld used to report unruly passenger incidents, but I think at certain point Simon (site keeper) got tired and stopped.

IATA says worldiwde there are 28'000 reported cases over 2007-2013 period*, but not every incident is reported, so the real number can be much higher

* - that averages about 11 registered incidents per day world wide..

lord lucan

Tenger wrote: »

I was told by a mate that EI actually checked pax at the boarding gate on Dublin-Riga flights. All alcohol was confiscated until landing and anyone drunk was prevented from boarding.

EDIT: To respond to martinsvi.....I know that my anecdote is from 3-4 years ago.

They done this a couple of years back on IBZ flights ex DUB too, lots of teens unable to handle their drink and knocking back vodka poured into burger king cokes upstairs in T2. Heard some horrendous tales from EI cabin crew.

dh1985

martinsvi wrote: »

It depends whether your flight goes to "that part" of the world with quite a lot of lads from "this part" of the world heading to or returning from their booze-cruise my I add.. although I don't think its cheap or popular anymore..

avhearld used to report unruly passenger incidents, but I think at certain point Simon (site keeper) got tired and stopped.

IATA says worldiwde there are 28'000 reported cases over 2007-2013 period*, but not every incident is reported, so the real number can be much higher

* - that averages about 11 registered incidents per day world wide..

How do you know the culprit was from "this part" of the world and was returning from their booze cruise. He may have been Latvian

martinsvi

dh1985 wrote: »

How do you know the culprit was from "this part" of the world and was returning from their booze cruise. He may have been Latvian

I'm not talking about this particular case, but the incidents I've witnessed myself. My comment has to be read in context with fits comment and my post before it

keith16

martinsvi wrote: »

In what way crew did well? I see a bunch of brave passengers taking matters in their own hands whilst cabin crew is nowhere to be seen.. Of course once passengers have secured the plane, a tiny little kid in Ryanair uniform shows up to stop the filming .. I hope they would do better in an emergency!

Very poor effort from this crew, have seen quite a lot of pax going mad over different airlines over the years, never have I seen crew completely avoiding confrontation like this

You base all of that on 90 seconds of smart phone footage? How do you know the PAX "secured" the aircraft?

That "kid" is just someone doing their job. If someone was filming you on an aircraft, would you not ask the crew to intervene?

I'd say Ryanair have absolutely countless situations like this and, what....90 seconds completely discredits their safety record and calls into question their ability to deal with confrontation?

martinsvi

keith16 wrote: »

You base all of that on 90 seconds of smart phone footage? How do you know the PAX "secured" the aircraft?

That "kid" is just someone doing their job. If someone was filming you on an aircraft, would you not ask the crew to intervene?

I'd say Ryanair have absolutely countless situations like this and, what....90 seconds completely discredits their safety record and calls into question their ability to deal with confrontation?

1) If you look closely you can see that footage consists of two parts, it is clear that the "event" lasted more than 90 seconds, at 1:13 we see an aisle with just the drunk standing, a second later, there's a passenger already engaging with him who wasn't on scene a frame before

2) looking at the weather forecast in Riga, I'm pretty sure the drunken buffoon didn't board the plane shirt-less. These situations are never sudden, they escalate, a professional crew will recognize the trouble brewing and will calm the passenger down before the shirt comes off

3) I read eyewitness reports that all cabin crew members ran to the front of cabin when situation started. If it's a procedure where they have to guard the flight-deck door, fair play, but does that mean, that any angry animal at the back of the plane can do what ever the f* he pleases?

4) about the kid doing his/hers job, didn't look like to be honest


btw I'm perfectly familiar and happy with the Ryanair's excellent safety record, but it shouldn't be brought up as a counter-argument every time we see something that might be substandard.. that's how records get ruined

punisher5112

Could have been a very hairy situation and lucky he didn't go for the door.

Its sad to see this stupid carry on but from looking at that I believe it was more then just drink.

Fair play to the passengers for stepping in.
The cabin crew would have been no match for that guys strength and are lucky there were guys on the plane which stepped in.

This is sad to see especially when you can hear kids on board and scary for all on board I would imagine.

DoYouEvenLift

Could he have actually opened the door there if he tried? It's not actually possible to open a door during flight is it? If it is, I'd be strapping myself in if someone was messing around near there

punisher5112

If ever in a situation like that and someone is out of control a fire extinguisher even a bag or coat could come in handy to keep some space and then pounce on them.

N64

DoYouEvenLift wrote: »

Could he have actually opened the door there if he tried? It's not actually possible to open a door during flight is it? If it is, I'd be strapping myself in if someone was messing around near there

It's impossible to open the door when the cabin is pressurised.

cml387

The diversion was to Aarhus and the passenger was arrested.
As to the passenger videoing it... is it not possible that the unruly passenger could have been even more disruptive if he saw he was being filmed?
In which case the owner of the video was also endangering passenger safety.

Strumms

Re: the debate about alcohol at airports...

It must be very difficult, for any crew member to discern if somone is that out of it or drunk based on that couple of seconds of interaction of checking their boarding pass / passport, unless they have drank the bar dry and are falling out of their standing literally. Incidents like these gain a lot of publicity and you can see why, a very unpleasant situation for everyone, crew and pax alike but it seems the number of such incidents that you can simply put down to alcohol consumption in the grand scheme isn't great. So the clamour to close pubs and not to sell duty free at airports and peanalise normal people who are not going to go ape ****, be able to buy some liquor for themselves or as a gift or god forbid have a pint or two to kill time before a flight is senseless.

martinsvi

Strumms wrote: »

Re: the debate about alcohol at airports...

So the clamour to close pubs and not to sell duty free at airports and peanalise normal people who are not going to go ape ****, be able to buy some liquor for themselves or as a gift or god forbid have a pint or two to kill time before a flight is senseless.

I suppose that's a fair point, just because I never use the facility, doesn't mean it's not needed... should the security at airports be more proactive I wonder...

Tenger

Looking at the video, I wonder did the crew make a conscious decision to allow the pax to stay and take his aggression out on the seats rather than approaching and making the situation worse.....at least until they got closer to their diversion point? At least he was in the galley and not threatening the pax or crew....

FWVT

What I want to know is where is it written down that it is not allowed to film on Ryanair flights? Was the steward quoting some official rule in the Ts and Cs or did he just pull it out of his ...?

galwayjohn89

Obviously a lot cut out of the video so hard to tell exactly what really happened, but why would you film it? Idiotic thing to do in my opinion, was never going to help and could possible anger the drunk making it a lot worse.

punisher5112

Vuzuggu wrote: »

Obviously a lot cut out of the video so hard to tell exactly what really happened, but why would you film it? Idiotic thing to do in my opinion, was never going to help and could possible anger the drunk making it a lot worse.

How would it make it worse. Having footage would show exactly what happened.

The crew did nothing lets be honest and rightly so cause he would have kicked their a**.

Luckily there were passengers who were decent enough to step in which I find Is something less common these days more so on the streets but still they could have stayed seated and let someone else deal with it.

A tool like that should be forced to apologize to everyone and pay all airline costs and damages.

galwayjohn89

Drunk passenger could spot that he was being record, not appreciate it and get more aggressive.

As pointed out before, I wonder did the crew purposely do nothing. Maybe I missed something in the video but there didn't seem to be any urgent reason to try restrain him from the video.

Maybe I'm biased as I was on a flight, where there was a drunk passenger (far drunker) who when spotted being videoed did not take it well, ended up attacking the passenger and what was a minor incident at first ended up with 4 injured passengers and a bottled cabin crew.

Tenger

FWVT wrote: »

What I want to know is where is it written down that it is not allowed to film on Ryanair flights? Was the steward quoting some official rule in the Ts and Cs or did he just pull it out of his ...?

The passenger by accepting the T&C's agree's to "follow all instructions given to them by the Captain or the Capt's representatives" Standard airline disclaimer.

In addition some airline do have a mention of "prohibited to use recording equipment onboard with the express permission of airline XX"

gozunda

Can't quite make it out but the guy appears fairly heavily built - bare knuckle boxer perhaps? And drunk - ff to the individuals taking him on. Tbh the line of pax helping reminds me of the hysterical woman scene in Airoplane. Agree RA are very late to the party ...

FWVT

Tenger wrote: »

The passenger by accepting the T&C's agree's to "follow all instructions given to them by the Captain or the Capt's representatives" Standard airline disclaimer.

That's well and good AFTER the steward tells him to stop recording, but he said "you're not allowed take photos or video on Ryanair flights". Where is that written down is all I'm wondering?

Tenger

Well in attention to the "obey all instructions" I'm sure it is mentioned somewhere in their inflight mag or on their website when you book with them.

fryup

Tenger wrote: »

Looking at the video, I wonder did the crew make a conscious decision to allow the pax to stay and take his aggression out on the seats ....

the pax is that an abbreviation of something??

LXFlyer

pax = passenger

Standard abbreviation in the travel industry.

cml387

lxflyer wrote: »

pax = passenger

Standard abbreviation in the travel industry.

Otherwise known as SLF
=self loading freight:D

Strumms

martinsvi wrote: »

I suppose that's a fair point, just because I never use the facility, doesn't mean it's not needed... should the security at airports be more proactive I wonder...

In fairness, little security can do if someone arrives for their flight 3 hours early and decides to clear security screening and then proceed get pissed up in the bar, on top of some other medication that isn't going to mix so well. if anyone was going to be proactive I'd like it to be the person working behind the bar, that they firstly don't serve them too much alcohol and secondly they could even call airport security / police discreetly if they witnessed someone behaving in a worrying manner. Either way the ultimate personal responsibility lies with each individual travelling, that they aren't pissed or otherwise and can behave themselves on a flight and are not a nuisance or a danger to staff or passengers. Sadly in this day and age people always seem to want to blame the drink, sleeping tablets, personal circumstances, pet died etc... just fcking behave yourself.

knockon

N64 wrote: »

It's impossible to open the door when the cabin is pressurised.

About 2 ton (on the door) of impossible if my days in the industry come back to me correctly.

billie1b

Strumms wrote: »

In fairness, little security can do if someone arrives for their flight 3 hours early and decides to clear security screening and then proceed get pissed up in the bar, on top of some other medication that isn't going to mix so well. if anyone was going to be proactive I'd like it to be the person working behind the bar, that they firstly don't serve them too much alcohol and secondly they could even call airport security / police discreetly if they witnessed someone behaving in a worrying manner. Either way the ultimate personal responsibility lies with each individual travelling, that they aren't pissed or otherwise and can behave themselves on a flight and are not a nuisance or a danger to staff or passengers. Sadly in this day and age people always seem to want to blame the drink, sleeping tablets, personal circumstances, pet died etc... just fcking behave yourself.

These people dont usually sit in the bar buying drinks, the usually get a bottle from Duty Free and hide it in their bags and drink it within the crowds sitting at the gates, pouring it into coffee cups or bottles of coke, it would be very unusual to see a person coming out of the bar like that and them being allowed to board the aircraft.

vonbarracuda

Have been on that flight a few times from RIX. Leaves too late at night in my opinion . Usually a few characters on it

irlrobins

FWVT wrote: »

What I want to know is where is it written down that it is not allowed to film on Ryanair flights? Was the steward quoting some official rule in the Ts and Cs or did he just pull it out of his ...?

Coupled with the fact that Ryanair actively encourages passengers to take pics of their Ryanair flights to enter the weekly photo competition on twitter...

Fred Swanson

This post has been deleted.

LXFlyer

Fred Swanson wrote: »

This post has been deleted.

22:25

ProfessorPlum

gozunda wrote: »

Can't quite make it out but the guy appears fairly heavily built - bare knuckle boxer perhaps? And drunk - ff to the individuals taking him on. Tbh the line of pax helping reminds me of the hysterical woman scene in Airoplane. Agree RA are very late to the party ...

Just a follow on from this point - and of course it's impossible to say from the video exactly what happened. While it's heartening to see passengers eager to 'help out', they could well be putting themselves on the wrong side of the law. Taken at face value (and bearing in mind the caveat above) the footage would support a charge of assault against the passengers who intervened. You are only entitled to defend yourself or your property, so unless you can show that you were personally in danger (for instance, if he'd been going for the door you could argue that claim), you have no business getting involved. The Captain can request assistance from passengers, thus authorising you to get involved, but unless that happened, you could be leaving yourself open to all sorts of hurt. Now, hopefully in this case the 'gentleman' didn't have the smarts to make a complaint.

martinsvi

It depends which law you try to apply really - aviation law (combined with all the conventions, especially Tokyo) doesn't really say anything about passengers engaging into attempt to stop unruly behaviour.. If we apply "ground" laws, you have to remember that Ireland is one of the few places on earth where one can get in trouble for stopping a criminal.. most places around Europe, e.g. Latvia where the plane was travelling from and as far as I know, Denmark, where plane landed to eject the scumbag, don't operate that way, and although police never encourages people to engage, at the same time, people never get in trouble for doing the right thing.. citizens arrest is a thing and it works better in some countries than others - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citizen%27s_arrest#Latvia

the essence here is that in Latvia one can commit a citizens arrest if the crime in question MIGHT be punishable by imprisonment.

In Ireland, you can only arrest someone IF that person will be serving 5 years or more.. e.g. that leaves you with just murder basically

ProfessorPlum

Well the aircraft is Irish registered, so Irish law applies unless it conflicts with any law the state overflown may have in relation to overflying aircraft. A citizens arrest is a pretty sticky area - I wonder did any of the passengers inform the disruptive one that they wee making a citizens arrest? I doubt it. Aviation law does imply that passengers have no right to intervene unless requested by the commander. Even then it would be expected that the various steps of an unruly passenger protocol would have been followed (verbal/written warning etc) otherwise the commander could find himself in hot water too. I'm sure the authorities would be in no hurry to defend the rights of the passenger who caused the upset, but if he made a complaint or was injured, for example, they might have no choice. Just worth baring in mind before getting involved in a brawl at altitude!

martinsvi

ProfessorPlum wrote: »

I wonder did any of the passengers inform the disruptive one that they wee making a citizens arrest? I doubt it.

unless they represent the law, they don't have to inform about the arrest or issue any warnings. The whole purpose of citizens arrest is to stop the crime in progress or not to allow the criminal to escape

In this case trying to damage (or to have a box match) to an aircraft is a criminal offence thus there should be no issues justifying an immediate arrest without following the protocols that law enforcers have to follow.

ProfessorPlum

Maybe, but as you said, a citizens arrest in Irish law is applicable only if the offence carries a 5 year sentence. I'm not sure that it would apply in this case. Also, a person can only make a citizens arrest if he suspects that the offender may attempt to avoid arrest by the police - that condition can hardly be applied since everyone is conveniently corralled inside an aluminium tube. In any event, I wouldn't want to be relying on an 'I was making a citizens arrest' defence.

martinsvi

ProfessorPlum wrote: »

I wouldn't want to be relying on an 'I was making a citizens arrest' defence.

this is the point I was trying to put through in the first place but apparently that didn't go very well with the crowd here.. - crew should have engaged in the first place, trying to calm him down by talking to him, making sure other passengers are well clear from this man..

I was on an emirates flight where a tiny lady-flight attendant was standing between me (waiting on loo) and a properly drugged chap twice the size of her, while the bloke was escorted to the back of the plane by other attendants. That was one hell of a teamwork I witnessed that day, they got him under control by just talking to him

ProfessorPlum

True - 99% of the time crew are able to de-escalate a situation like this and restore order without force. Left in a vacuum, somebody will step in and tske control, potentially making the matter far worse.
In this incident, since we only have a short edited video, I'll be very generous and give the crew the benefit of the doubt and assume they were all in the front galley working out a strategy