Drunk passenger creates ruckus on flight, arrested

A drunk passenger on board an Indigo Airlines Chennai-Mumbai flight was arrested by the Sahar police in the early hours of Monday after the crew lodged a complaint against him for creating a ruckus during take-off

Mumbai: A drunk passenger on board an Indigo Airlines Chennai-Mumbai flight was arrested by the Sahar police in the early hours of Monday after the crew lodged a complaint against him for creating a ruckus during take-off.

FILE PHOTO: An IndiGo Airlines aircraft arrives at a gate of the domestic airport in Mumbai February 22, 2012. Picture taken on February 22, 2012. REUTERS/Vivek Prakash/File Photo (REUTERS)

According to the crew, the passenger, identified as Darshan Parekh, 35, was drunk and refused to follow safety instructions when the flight was about to take off from Chennai airport.

The passenger identified as Darshan Parekh (35) is a small-time businessman from Mumbai and was returning from Chennai when the incident took place.

In the complaint, the chief flight attendant of the flight, Almas Anwar Shaikh (28) said that immediately after the passenger boarded the flight, the crew noticed that he was drunk. When the crew members asked him to strap on his seatbelt during take-off, he refused and created a ruckus.

Shaikh told the police that the crew asked him to sit down but he did not and he also refused to fasten his seatbelt and began shouting.

Shaikh said that when she intervened and tried to pacify him, he started abusing the crew. As the flight had already taken off when the drama was unfolding, they registered a complaint only upon landing in Mumbai.

The officers from Sahar police station said that Shaikh approached the Indigo airlines authorities after the flight landed and registered an FIR against Parekh. The police arrested Parekh on Monday early morning and he was granted bail from the police station during the day.

Parekh was arrested under IPC section 188 (Disobedience to order duly promulgated by public servant) and section 22 of the Aircraft Rules, 1937 (Assault and other acts of interference against a crew member on board an aircraft).