There was drama on board a Ryanair plane destined for Malaga on Saturday afternoon, after a man allegedly tried to open the emergency exit on the flight that had suffered a four hour delay from Mahón in Menorca due to the situation with the ‘bomb hoax’ easyJet flight.
The incident caused genuine panic and fear among passengers, who included children, on board the plane. The arrested man, a 46-year-old Belgian citizen, was allegedly ‘in a state of intoxication’ when he boarded the Ryanair plane and, after being on board for only a few minutes, began to behave aggressively and demand that the flight take off immediately.
According to a police press release, the man began to insult other passengers, kicking and punching the seats next to his, and tried to force open one of the aircraft’s emergency exits.
Because he refused to listen to reason, the Ryanair crew alerted the Guardia Civil and when the officers boarded the plane, which was still on the ground, the man refused to leave the aircraft and put up a struggle.
At one point he threw himself into some seats where other passengers were sitting, landing on them, while passengers snapped at the man that there were babies and small children on board to consider.
Finally, the man was arrested for resisting authority, and taken into custody by airport police blaming the earlier incident and the delay for his actions.
The flight, on which some 180 people were due to travel, was subsequently cancelled because this extra delay caused by the man, meant that the cabin crew would exceed working hours before landing in Malaga.
This meant that the passengers, after the long delays and then witnessing this altercation, had to get off the plane to be reallocated onto other later flights.
