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‘Appalling’: Midair brawl over racist comments targeting Pakistani fliers, Jet2 flight diverted to Brussels

'Appalling': Midair brawl over racist comments targeting Pakistani fliers, Jet2 flight diverted to Brussels

A Jet2 flight ( LS896) from Turkey’s Antalaya to Manchester, UK had to make an emergency landing in Belgium as two passengers started throwing punches at each other while other passengers screamed. Jet2 described their behaviour as “appalling” and said those two flyers would be banned for life.It all started over a passenger passing racist remarks loud enough for passengers sitting immediately next to him to hear. The man was drunk as he had been drinking on the flight but eyewitnesses said it was not drunken rambling; he was fully aware of what he was saying. Initially, everyone ignored it. But then the passenger turned aggressive when he could not buy cigarettes from the cabin crew. Then he targeted the Pakistani passengers around him, The Sun reported. Soon it turned into a battleground with some accounts claiming that passengers saw blood on seats and teeth on the floor. The pilot had to make an emergency landing in Brussels and two passengers were offloaded. The pilot addressed everyone on the plane and informed that he has 30 years of flying experience but never saw something like this. “I have just got home from an awful flight and am still shaken up, as are many other passengers. What should have been a straightforward journey turned into one of the most distressing experiences we’ve had. From early on in the flight, a passenger seated behind us began making racist remarks, quiet enough that others couldn’t clearly hear, but loud enough for us to. We chose to ignore it at first. But it didn’t stop. It escalated. Although he had been drinking on the flight, he was fully aware of his surroundings, knew exactly what he was saying, and was orientated throughout. We were thousands of feet in the air and the situation kept escalating,” one passenger narrated the harrowing experience on social media.

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