Excessive alcohol and flying just do not mix–I’ve made that abundantly clear in previous posts.
But sometimes passengers are just crazy (recall the deranged passenger that caused my United flight to divert to Omaha last year). Take the German man on an Madrid to Frankfurt Iberia flight last Thursday: for some reason this guy just felt the need to shed his clothing and start running up and down the aisle of the aircraft. As he was disrobing the staff tried to talk him out of it, but his mind was already made up and he quickly became aggressive. Then he locked himself in the lavatory.
That was enough for the captain, who turned the plane around and headed back for Madrid (too bad he did not do a barrel role while the guy was in the lav).
The oddest part of this story? The man was not arrested. Police were on hand to escort him off the plane but he was cooperative (and not intoxicated) and walked off without a billy club rammed into his back.
Arrival into Frankfurt was delayed.
Well, I was going to initially point the blame for the man’s indecent behavior as an air rage reaction to Iberia’s notoriously craptastic food, but realized this was an inter-Europe flight where the meals-for-purchase include awesome little sausages and bags of spicy green olives. Those plus beer equal the most fun I’ve ever had with an inflight snack. No, it wasn’t the food – dude was just crazy.