Abusive passenger forces Transavia pilot to divert flight from Eindhoven
A Transavia pilot decided to make an emergency landing on Monday to get an aggressive passenger off the aircraft. Video taken inside the cabin of Transavia flight HV 6215 shows a struggle between several men near the cockpit, with several punches being thrown.
Flight attendants can then be seen stringing together a series of rip ties presumably to restrain the assailant. An edited version of the video was published by RTL News to several different platforms on Tuesday.
The flight from Eindhoven to Tenerife, Spain, was diverted to Faro, Portugal. In the video the pilot can be heard on a public address system asking if any passengers can provide assistance to cabin crew, specifically fire fighters, police officers, or military personnel.
Several media outlets reported the passenger as being drunk and English-speaking. He was escorted off the plane in Faro.
There were no injuries in the incident.
The Boeing 737 departed from Eindhoven on January 1 at 1:15 p.m., and reached ground crew in Faro just before 4 p.m. local time. A little less than an hour later, the passenger jet was back in the air, reaching Tenerife after 7 p.m.
Flight HV 6215 was scheduled for a 4.5-hour journey, and ended up taking an extra two hours and 15 minutes because of the unscheduled diversion.
