Unruly plane passengers jailed, fined $100,000 each

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 04/02/2020 (1823 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

A man and woman from the United Kingdom have been sentenced to 30 days in jail and fined $100,000 each after their drunken escapades aboard a Los Cabos, Mexico-bound plane forced pilots to divert it to Winnipeg late Friday morning.

Ben Iontton, 25, pleaded guilty in provincial court Tuesday to mischief over $5,000 and assaulting a police officer while Natalie Walker, 34, pleaded guilty to causing a disturbance and mischief over $5,000.

Iontton and Walker were not travelling together.

Iontton started drinking excessively after boarding the plane in London, and was verbally abusive to flight staff for hours, Crown attorney Peter Edgett told Judge Lindy Choy.

After flight crew members restrained Iontton in his seat, he yelled that he had a bomb and threatened to kill a pilot, Edgett said.

 

So this guy disrupted our flight instead of being in mexico we are now stuck in canada for the night #tui #worststarttoaholiday pic.twitter.com/0H3YW18snY

— Lord Dewey Wingrave♛ (@Deweybwoi91) January 31, 2020

 

Walker meanwhile, seated several rows away, had several in-flight drinks before dipping into her duty-free liquor.

Walker yelled and swore at the flight crew and at one point, according to another passenger, pointed her legs in the air and pretended to give birth.

Pilots diverted the flight to Winnipeg, where it landed at 11:35 a.m. and was greeted by RCMP officers who took the pair into custody.

Iontton elbowed and kneed an officer as he was taken into custody.

Air carrier TUI Airlines lodged passengers in Winnipeg hotels overnight. The flight disruption also delayed departing flights in Los Cabos, resulting in hundreds of thousands of dollars in damages for the airline, Edgett said.

dean.pritchard@freepress.mb.ca