Aircraft was at FL340 , when two passengers of this flight from New York to Tel-Aviv decided to Self-Upgrade to Business class , without consulting the Cabin Crew , as the Flight was not densely seated !
The United Airlines flight (UA90/UAL90) from New York to Tel-Aviv (TLV) Israel was forced to do an Air Turn Back to New York (EWR) on Friday morning after the two passengers began disrupting the flight rules , causing a commotion after they were asked for proof that they were sitting in their assigned seats.
With 11 crew members onboard , the 2018 built Boeing B787-10 dreamliner (Regd. N17002) took off from the Newark Liberty International Airport (EWR) at 4:23AM UTC without any cabin disturbances and soon started cruising at 34000 Feet at around 4:48AM UTC.
Once at Cruise, the two passengers came to the Business class section and occupied two seats of this partially filled aircraft with 123 passengers , out of a maximum of seating capacity of 330 passengers.
When flight attendants asked both the passengers for proof that they were sitting in their assigned seats, they refused to show their tickets, and started the exchange of words, which became out of control during next half an hour.
The cockpit reacted to the incident by deciding to turn back to the origin point and the aircraft turned around near the US-Canada border separating Maine and New Brunswick , at around 05:10 UTC / FL340.
The dreamliner landed back at Newark Liberty International Airport (EWR) after two hours and 46 minutes of "Flight to nowhere" , at around 1:49 a.m. Local time on Friday.
Law enforcement officers met the aircraft after landing followed by arrest of the concerned unruly passengers, and United airlines decided to cancel the flight further.
United Airlines released a statement that,
The flight returned to New York due to "disruptive passengers on board." and the airline puts the safety of the flight and its passengers above everything. "The airline has no tolerance for any inappropriate behavior".
The Port Authority Police Department responded to the incident.
"No charges by PAPD were issued, no further incident or reported injuries,"
Of late, Airlines , operators and cabin crews are having a tough time handling Unruly passengers during the Pandemic, to which FAA has been reacting regularly by publishing the Unruly passenger incident data in it's website.
► Federal Aviation Regulations 91.11, 121.580 and 135.120 state that "no person may assault, threaten, intimidate, or interfere with a crewmember in the performance of the crewmember's duties aboard an aircraft being operated."
► As part of the FAA's Reauthorization Bill (PDF) FAA can propose up to $37,000 per violation for unruly passenger cases.
► Previously, the maximum civil penalty per violation was $25,000. One incident can result in multiple violations.
You may like to read...
Display Picture : Flight Radar24
.jpg)
