Orthodox Jewish men cause 'bedlam' on flight from Israel to Luton

2/18

The Telegraph

By Harry Yorke3 hrs ago

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© Getty Images Police were forced to board a flight arriving at Luton airport on Monday, after a group of strictly-Orthodox Jewish men refused to sit next to women for religious reasons and plugged a phone into the plane’s control panel.

The group, believed to be a wedding party, were described by one passenger as causing “absolute bedlam”.

The party of ten men were accused of antagonising staff by obstructing the main aisle and constantly ringing the service button, whilst one man also attempted to charge his phone in a control panel - which led to the plane’s exit light being switched on.

Unable to cope, crew on-board the easyJet flight from Tel Aviv called police whilst travelling at 30,000 ft, resulting in the men being escorted of plane by officers once the plane had landed.

Speaking to the Jewish Chronicle, a passenger said that air stewards had been unable to “control” the disruptive party.

"It was infuriating to witness both for passengers and for the stewards, who tried but failed to control them.

“It was impossible for the stewards to get these people to listen to them.

“When some of the women got up and moved seats to ensure that the plane got to take off, some of these men never even thought about saying ‘thank you’.

“Then after the plane took off one male plugged his phone into the control panel above the stewards’ area.

“As the exit lights went on, some of the stewards looked as though they were really quite panicked.

“One cabin crew member eventually went over to the man and demanded he take his mobile and said he was responsible for a possible compromise of safety.”

Commenting on the issue, easyJet confirmed the incident had taken place, adding that one man’s attempts to plug his phone into a control panel had been “foolish”.

“easyJet can confirm that flight EZY2084 from Tel Aviv to Luton on 13 February 2017 was met by police on arrival at London Luton due to a small group of passengers behaving disruptively by not complying with the captain and cabin crew’s request to take their seats both prior to departure from Tel Aviv and during the flight.

“Separately during the flight a passenger plugged a mobile device into a USB port on the crew control panel in the forward galley in a foolish attempt to charge it.

"This led to the exit light above the panel being illuminated but did not in any way compromise the safety or security of the aircraft.”

In a statement, Bedfordshire Police said: “We were called at around 5.55pm on Monday to reports of a group of disruptive men on a flight landing at London Luton Airport.

"Officers attended and escorted the men off the flight preventing a breach of the peace. No offences were found to have been committed.”