A Hong Kong resident aboard a British Airways flight to Bangkok had to be restrained after he went berserk and smashed a window blind.
The airline said it was one of the worst incidents of air rage it had come across. It took six people to restrain the 29-year-old British citizen.
The incident began seven hours after Flight BA009 from London to Bangkok, Sydney and Melbourne left Heathrow on Thursday night with 395 passengers on board.
After drinking heavily, the man, an electrician going to see his girlfriend in Thailand, began abusing fellow passengers and refused to keep quiet despite warnings from cabin crew, an airline spokesman said.
'Passengers saw him drinking and popping pills. We are not sure what sort of tablets they were, but the man got worse throughout the journey and went on the rampage in the plane.' Witnesses said the man harassed the woman sitting next to him, ripping off her headphones and biting them in half.
'I curled up in a ball and was frightened. I was left very upset and crying,' said the 23-year-old woman. The man then jumped up and attacked a passenger before racing to the rear of the aircraft. There he attempted to punch out the window of a rear door, shattering the plastic shutter and badly cutting his hand.