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A mass brawl involving two families on a July 3 flight forced the pilots to make an emergency landing just 36 minutes after takeoff.
“It was like the flight from hell. And it all escalated from that one passenger wanting to change seats,” an unnamed passenger told The U.S. Sun.
It occurred on an evening London-bound Ryanair flight from Agadir, Morocco. Passengers on the flight told the Sun it started when a man in his 20s asked a woman to swap seats so he could sit next to his family. The woman refused to change seats since she already sitting with her daughter. The man then began to threaten her.
After the flight reached 30,000 feet and the seatbelt sign turned off, the exchange escalated. The woman’s husband, a man in his 30s, came to her defense and the two men started punching each other. One of the men’s family members on the flight also got involved.
“Then a lady in the row behind started to have a panic attack because of everything going on,” a passenger told the Sun. “She was screaming and there were kids crying. It was like a snowball effect.”
The chaos forced the pilots of the flight to make an emergency landing in Marrakech — but the chaos continued on the ground. Moroccan police had to take nine passengers off the flight. And during the brawl, one passenger got sick and required medical attention upon landing. He was determined unfit to fly but refused to leave the plane and threatened the crew. He had to be removed by police.
“As it took almost two hours in total to treat and offload these disruptive passengers, during which time the rest of the passengers remained onboard, the crew reached their permitted flying hours, and caused the flight to be delayed overnight,” a Ryanair spokesperson told the Sun.
The 200 passengers left on the plane were provided overnight accommodations and their flight was rescheduled and took off the following morning.