Mumbai: A senior citizen, travelling business class with his wife on a packed Air India flight from Newark to Mumbai on Wednesday experienced a severe panic attack which had him scream and shout for close to seven hours, even as cabin crew and passengers on board tried to pacify and restrain him. "He swung between bouts of calm and rage.
He was verbally abusive and on three separate occasions during the episode, he tried to strangle his rather frail looking wife. We had to rush in with the crew and restrain him," said Pravin Tonsekar, a business class passenger on board the said flight. The senior citizen calmed down only after two doctors on board administered sedatives.
Air India flight AI-144 departed Newark around twenty minutes past noon and the aircraft cabin was calm for about three hours post take-off, said Tonsekar, seated on 9 K in the business class. "Then I saw the senior citizen seated on 14 K arguing with a flight attendant. That went on for quite some time, about an hour," he said.
Then all of a sudden the senior citizen, who was about 6 foot tall and appeared physically fit began yelling and shouting in panic. "He wanted to disembark. He was screaming, telling the crew to open the door and let him out. He must have been a frequent flyer because one of the crew members who was trying to pacify him tried to reason with him saying, you flew with us last time and all is well with this flight too. But he couldn't be pacified. He would scream, `stop, open the door' and then at another time hurl abuse and expletives at the crew," he said.
The tirade of abuse and panic attack went on for close to seven hours, he added. "It was an extremely trying situation for the crew. Even the second batch of crew, whose duty time hadn't started yet and so were in plainclothes got up and tried to ease the situation and calm him down," he said. Passengers had a harrowing time. The man was finally administered sedatives by two doctors on board even as the crew and others restrained him. Thereafter the flight progressed smoothly and landed in Mumbai around noon on Thursday.
18/05/2023 Manju V/Times of India
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