Swedish national held for ‘molesting’ crew member on IndiGo flight, gets bail

There seems to be no let-up in instances of despicable behaviour from air passengers. On Thursday (March 30), Mumbai Police arrested a Swedish national for allegedly molesting a female crew member on board an IndiGo Bangkok-Mumbai flight. He was allegedly drunk.

The accused, Klas Erik Harald Jonas Westberg, was reportedly arrested after IndiGo Airlines lodged a complaint. He was produced in an Andheri court on Friday and granted bail.

The incident reportedly happened on board flight 6E-1052 when the flight attendant asked the accused for his ATM card to pay for the food he had eaten. Westberg allegedly first held her hand but she pulled her hand away. He later allegedly molested her in full view of other passengers and crew. The crew member has alleged that Westberg was drunk.

“When I shouted and screamed that he was misbehaving, he returned to his seat,” TOI quoted the cabin crew member’s statement.

Despicable behaviour from drunk fliers

There has been a series of reported obnoxious behaviour from fliers — both domestic and international — since last November. On March 26 (Sunday), an unknown drunk male passenger reportedly vomited in the aisle and defecated outside the toilet in a Guwahati-Delhi IndiGo flight.

Officials said Westberg’s is the eighth arrest of an unruly airline passenger in India in the past three months. On March 23, two drunk IndiGo fliers travelling from Dubai to Mumbai were booked for allegedly misbehaving with the crew.

Since November 2022, at least four incidents of drunk passengers urinating on fellow fliers have come to light. In another incident, fliers got into a brawl on a Thai Smile Airways flight from Bangkok to Kolkata.

On March 11, a 37-year-old US citizen was booked after he allegedly smoked in the bathroom and misbehaved with co-passengers aboard an Air India London-Mumbai flight. On March 5, a 21-year-old student was banned from flying with American Airlines after he allegedly urinated on a fellow male passenger in a drunken state aboard a New York-New Delhi flight.

In January, a 45-year-old Italian woman passenger was arrested after she allegedly assaulted a crew member and spat on another on an Air Vistara flight from Abu Dhabi to Mumbai.

(With agency inputs)