A 23-year-old pleaded guilty to criminal charges after refusing to stop vaping and consuming his own alcohol onboard an EasyJet flight, which led him to vomit all over the seats.
Man Arrested After Vaping, Vomiting Onboard EasyJet Flight
The incident occurred on an EasyJet domestic flight from London Gatwick (LGW) to Inverness, Scotland (INV). Ben Munday, a Royal Air Force employee, began smoking onboard with his e-cigarette and also began consuming alcohol that he had brought onboard. Both smoking and the consumption of personal alcohol are illegal under UK law and airline policy.
Flight attendants implored him to stop, but he refused. Instead, he stretched out across three seats and continued to smoke and drink. Again, flight attendants advised him to stop but he responded by taking long puffs on his e-cigarette and blowing them through the cabin.
Wisely, the crew just left him alone and alerted the captain as to what was going on. The captain radioed ahead to have the police waiting for the flight. Sometime before landing, Munday vomited all over the seats. Thankfully, his vomit seemed to miss a mother traveling with her two young children who were seated directly in front of Munday.
Police boarded the aircraft in Inverness and placed handcuffs on Munday as he resisted arrest. He continued to resist and was placed in leg restraints before being placed in a police van and taken to a local station for processing.
In court earlier this week, Munday pleaded guilty to drunk and disorderly conduct. While Munday’s attorney claimed that the young man was suffering from “very poor” mental health and “self-soothing” with alcohol, she added:
“It is nothing like he has ever been involved in before and he continues to express regret, remorse and shame in recognizing the impact that it would have had on other passengers on the plane.
“He did not go out to cause any sort of problem but the alcohol essentially took control of him.”
Giving him a slap on the wrist because it was his first offense, a magistrate assigned him 140 hours of community service, but warned him:
“You have no doubt cost easyJet thousands, if not more.
“You have got a job and seem to be well thought of, I trust that this will be the first and last time you will appear in court.”
CONCLUSION
I hope EasyJet comes after this man for at least the cleaning fees for his vomit. We can formulate all sorts of excuses for Munday and I commend him for pleading guilty, but conduct like his will only be discouraged if he pays with both his time and money. Hopefully Munday will now get the help he needs and not be a repeat offender.
I worked in the UK for 3 years and I can attest that unfortunately this is normal behavior among younger generation. I will not make further comments.
Sure, Jan.
Sorry to say you are quite correct regarding UK alcohol abuse. Sadly, some of the worse offenders are young women.
At first I thought it was Rand Paul’s kid but imagine my relief when I saw it was just a copy-cat. Mazel & Brucha, Rand
He should lose his job with the Royal air force
Many Many years ago, on US Air, I was talking to the guy next to me (no one in middle). I was behind him in line during boarding and they wouldn’t let him board early eventhough he showed is status card. I guess his BP was missing the info or something. Then when they agreed to let him board, they hassled him about his backpack fitting in the sizer. They let be board while he was rearranging the items in his bag to fit.
We had a short conversation about that while in flight.
ANYWAYS, then he suddenly started vaping. I was like “are you allowed to do that, I thought it was no smoking?” he said, its ok, its electronic. I had never seen such a thing before at the time so I didn’t inquire further. A few FA walked by while he was vaping and said nothing but I think they were was focused on looking at our crotch/seatbelt.
Maybe it was ok back then, I’m not sure.
Some people simply need the crap beat out of them.