Passengers were left “traumatised” when a “vicious” brawl, between a man wearing a Celtic jersey and another, erupted on a Jet2 flight – which saw one biting the other on the neck.
The incident unfolded on a Friday, December 6, flight from Antalya, Turkey, to Leeds, reports the Mirror. A fellow traveller reported the two men who were seated next to each other – one of which wearing what appears to be a Celtic shirt – appeared “drunk” and suddenly started fighting.
The eyewitness recounted: “The guy on the end seat got up and went ‘f***k off, you’re doing my head in’. He tried to punch him and gouge his eyes out, but my partner intervened. There were a lot of fists flying, and one of them was biting his neck.”
“The children were screaming. We run a boxing gym and are used to seeing this stuff but this was something else. It was really horrible and nasty. There was blood everywhere. I was left traumatised.”
The brawl broke out about 45 minutes into the flight and lasted around five minutes before they calmed down, according to the passenger. She added: “One of the guys pulled his [own] tooth out. I was told it was thrown somewhere on the plane.”
The two men were escorted off by police after the plane had to be diverted to Bulgaria. Due to the incident, the passenger said the plane had to land at London Stansted airport in the UK and didn’t arrive until around midnight.
A coach was then arranged to take them back to Leeds. A representative from Jet2.com confirmed: “We can confirm that flight LS214 from Antalya to Leeds Bradford was diverted to Sofia Airport on Friday 6th December, so that police could offload two disruptive passengers.”
They added: “As a family friendly airline, we take a zero-tolerance approach to such behaviour and both passengers have been banned from flying with us for life.”
Don’t miss the latest news from around Scotland and beyond – Sign up to our daily newsletter here.