Man’s drunken behaviour ‘affected safety’ of everyone on SIA flight

Singapore — A Russian national who got drunk and became disorderly on a Singapore Airlines flight was sentenced to three weeks in jail on Friday (Jan 10).

“An airplane is an enclosed place. What you did affected the safety and security of all passengers, and the stewards and stewardesses should not have to put up with this behaviour,” Todayonline reports District Judge Hamidah Ibrahim as telling him.

Thirty-seven-year-old Pomorin Roman, a business owner, was aboard SQ 361 from Moscow to Singapore on Nov 1 last year. He drank four glasses each of whisky and champagne during the flight. At around 1 am, he started taking to female fellow passenger.

When the woman and her husband felt uneasy, they asked the flight crew for help and Roman was taken back to his seat.

Once there, he began yelling, which disturbed the sleep of the other passengers.

The crew repeatedly entreated him to observe silence but he kept shouting at different times during the flight. On one occasion, he even left his seat to go to the woman he had been talking to earlier.

Since he would not calm down, the flight crew called the police four hours before the plane was scheduled to land at Changi Airport Terminal 3.

Roman was arrested when the plane landed in Singapore.

The authorities determined from a blood sample that Roman had 111 mg of ethanol per 100 ml of blood. In Singapore, 80 mg per 100 ml of blood is the legal limit for driving.

Deputy Public Prosecutor Lim Shin Hui asked that the court impose a custodial sentence, with the term to be decided by the court.

According to the DPP: “His unruly conduct posed a risk to the safety of other passengers and to Singapore’s (aviation) reputation.”

Mr Barry Delaney, the lawyer for Roman, said his client had been feeling “exuberant” at the prospect of the holiday, and had been drinking at a party even before getting on the flight.

The lawyer added: “He continued drinking on the flight, which led to unruly behaviour. He has learnt his lesson and said he will not break the law again.”

In mitigation, Mr Delaney added that, during the course of the investigation, his client had not worked for two months. He had also been forced to live in hostels in Singapore, which had affected him financially.

Roman’s three-week sentence was backdated to Jan 3. -/TISG

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