Unruly passenger forces Air India Delhi-London flight to turn around

A Delhi-London Air India flight on Monday returned to the national capital after an unruly passenger had a brawl with a crew member.

According to news agency ANI, the airline lodged a complaint with the Delhi Airport police on the incident. The passenger was handed over to the police, the report also said. The airline said that the passenger had physically harmed two crew members.

The Air India flight took off from Delhi at 6.35 am and the brawl took place after sometime. This fired the plane to make a turn and go back to Delhi again, reports also said.

The flight AI 111 had around 225 passengers, reports also said. The unruly passenger was decorated and the flight later took off for London, Heathrow.

There have been many such incidents in recent times, in which unruly passengers have forced the turnarounds of flights. These include incidents of a male passenger allegedly urinating on a female co-passenger and people found smoking in the lavatory of the flights.

The Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) has taken strict action in these incidents, and the airlines concerned have also imposed a flying ban on the passengers.

The DGCA had recently said that the airlines are empowered to act against passengers who indulge in unruly behaviour on flights. The DGCA had in January penalised Air India relating to incidents of unruly behaviour by passengers.

On January 10, the DGCA had imposed a fine of Rs 10 lakh on the airline for not reporting two incidents of unruly passenger behaviour onboard a Paris-New Delhi flight.

Since 2017, a total of 143 passengers have been put on the 'no-Fly List.'