A plane bound for Lyon had to be diverted to Malaga airport on Wednesday, October 2, due to the ‘highly conflictive’ attitude of one of its passengers.
The plane, which had taken off from the Moroccan city of Agadir, was flying over Spanish airspace when one of the passengers, apparently showing obvious signs of intoxication, started smoking on board. Upon seeing the situation, several members of the crew tried to ask him to stop and calm down the clearly agitated man.
Drunk, smoking, and belligerent passenger causes diversion
It seems the passenger was not responding to the crew’s instructions and began behaving aggressively towards them. After several attempts to calm him down, the pilot and the rest of the crew decided to divert the flight so that Spanish police authorities could take charge of him. On arrival at Malaga airport, National Police escorted the man from the aircraft.
According to a message posted on social media by Spanish air traffic controllers, the flight had to be diverted when the plane was flying over Cádiz province on its way to the south of France.
Credit: Controladores Aéreos, X.com
A similar situation occurred in April of 2024 when a flight from Edinburgh to Tenerife was diverted for an unexpected landing at Madeira airport due to an unruly passenger. On that occasion, the passenger ignored instructions from the flight crew and walked around the aircraft clearly drunk, belligerent, and vaping.
