Flight makes U-turn to Japan after passenger demanded to sit next to his GF, argued with crew for 2 hours

NARITA: After a man refused to take no for an answer and kept on insisting that he be seated next to his girlfriend, the plane turned around and went back to Narita International Airport in Japan for an emergency landing.

The incident occurred on Dec 1 (Monday) on Spring Airlines flight IJ005 to Shanghai Pudong International Airport, which left at around 7:00 in the evening.

Spring Airlines is a budget carrier based in Shanghai.

The problem with the man began during boarding, when, unhappy with the seat he had been assigned, he complained to the flight crew. A report from the Associated Press (AP) said that he wanted to exchange seats with a passenger who was seated beside his girlfriend. The passenger, however, declined to swap seats.

The flight attendants then told the man that he would have to stay in his assigned seat for the flight, which was supposed to take three hours.

However, the man would not stop arguing with the flight crew. According to the other passengers on the flight, this kept going for nearly two hours after the plane left Narita.

This caused the pilots to decide to make a U-turn and go back, deeming it an emergency, and the plane made the two-hour trip back, which came as a surprise to the other passengers.

One told the AP, “There was no prior announcement or discussion about the situation. We only heard an announcement stating that the flight was turning back due to a person obstructing the crew.”

This was a cause of much frustration to everyone else on the plane, as the flight was only half an hour away from landing in Shanghai.

“He could have settled down so everybody could reach their destination,” the passenger added.

Other travellers took videos of the altercation between the passenger and the flight attendants, with one showing police officers on the plane after the emergency landing in Narita, which occurred at around 11:00 p.m. local time.

The man was then removed from the plane, but whether or not he will be facing charges remains to be seen.

The other passengers on Spring Airlines Japan flight IJ005 were given a replacement flight the next day, at around 10:00 a.m. According to the AP report, some of them had to sleep at the airport itself, however. They were given ¥10,000 (around S$84) as compensation, according to local news reports. /TISG

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