A disruptive man who locked himself inside a bathroom on a Qantas Airways plane and then tried to fight other passengers caused a 17-hour flight to turn back just two hours into the journey.
According to news.com.au, the Qantas flight took off from Perth, Australia, at 7:03 p.m. local time Saturday and was scheduled to land in London at 10:54 p.m. but was forced to make an emergency landing back at Perth Airport.
The plane turned around just two hours into the 17-hours-and-20-minutes journey.
The unidentified disruptive passenger reportedly locked himself inside the bathroom for about an hour before coming out and screaming at flight attendants and other passengers. He then squared up with another man before crew members and passengers physically restrained him.
“I think the air crew were marvelous, they were very in control of the situation, they were calming passengers,” a passenger on the flight, Christine Kohli, told the ABC. “They were very, very supportive. They got him down to the back of the plane quite quickly. It was clear he was quite an unwell man.”
“It looked like it was going to turn into a brawl,” Kohli continued. “Eventually they managed to calm him down and get him back in his seat. He seemed really wired and agitated.”
The disruptive passenger was allegedly handcuffed and masked while on the plane. Once the flight landed safely back in Australia, police boarded the Boeing 787-9 Dreamliner and placed the man in custody.
