Air New Zealand flight NZ176 from Perth to Auckland was forced to divert to Melbourne three hours into its journey after an unruly passenger caused a disruption on board earlier this week.
An Australian Federal Police (AFP) spokesperson said officers boarded the flight at Melbourne Airport and escorted off a 23-year-old New Zealand national.
The woman, who wished to remain anonymous, had originally been asleep when the fracas started.
“My partner tapped me on the shoulder and pointed to a flight attendant standing over the guy who was arrested and yelling at him, ‘Sit down! Sit the f*** down! Don’t move!’
“The flight attendant was trying to use his own force to hold this guy down and he was pretty big.”
She said two other passengers were big enough to take the man to the back of the plane.
“They shoved him to the ground, tied him up and were yelling at him,” she said.
“He was budging, yelling, ‘let go of me!’ and saying he wanted to mess stuff up. The other passengers were trying to restrain him from hurting the flight attendants or anyone else on board.”
Flight attendants then moved passengers who were sitting in the centre of the back row to the front of the plane and placed the disruptive man in the vacated seats.
“They grabbed extra belts to hold him in place. They held him there for a while and had a few people talking to him,” she said.
“Our food was still in front of us. We didn’t know what was going on.
“There was constant yelling and a lot of havoc going around on the plane. No one really knew if we were safe or not or what this guy’s intentions were.
“It was very frightening.”
Air New Zealand passengers restrained an unruly patron at the back of a Perth to Auckland flight.
As the plane was landing, the offender’s arms began to slip and a few passengers said, “I’ll break your f***ing arm if you try and do anything”, the woman said.
After departing Melbourne and arriving in Auckland, she and her partner almost missed their connecting flight.
“Our bags had to get rushed out to the plane at the last minute,” she said.
“It wasn’t a nice experience at all. I didn’t sleep the whole flight. [We] were feeling unsettled.”
Air NZ chief operational integrity and safety officer Captain David Morgan said the flight stopped in Melbourne because of an “incident involving a disruptive passenger on board”.
“The aircraft was met by police on arrival in Melbourne,” Morgan said.
“The flight continued on to Auckland and landed at 8.50am, a delay of approximately 90 minutes.
“Our crew managed this incident well, but incidents like this are distressing for customers and our people and we have zero tolerance for this sort of behaviour on our aircraft.
“We apologise for any inconvenience the diversion caused, but it was for the safety of everyone on board and safety is something we won’t compromise on.”
The AFP spokesperson said the man was charged with one count of assaulting crew affecting the performance of their duty, contrary to section 21 of the Crimes (Aviation) Act 1991 (Cth).
