A distraught mum claims she feared her family were going to die when a passenger reportedly tried to open the plane door of their Tui flight while screaming he would "see them all in heaven".
Mel Brown was travelling home from her 10-day summer holiday in Paphos, Cyprus, with her family when she says the pilot was forced to make a "terrifying" emergency landing after a man became "highly aggressive and threatening".
The 32-year-old told how a man who she says was clearly intoxicated began trying to open the emergency doors and praying loudly on the floor.
She says he was telling terrified fellow passengers to start praying.
The mum-of-two claims chaos ensured on the flight as terrified passengers started running to the back of the plane, jumping over seats, grabbing their children and screaming "help, we're going to die".
Ms Brown, who works as a waitress, said other passengers helped to restrain the man in a seat while the pilot landed the holiday jet in Zagreb, Croatia.
Tui confirmed that due to a "very disruptive" passenger, the flight was forced to divert so that the passenger could be 'offloaded' from the aircraft where he was met by local police.
Other customers shared similar experiences on social media, with one lady named Kirsty saying the man pointed at her and her children and told them to pray.
Meanwhile, others tweeted that they were stranded after a passenger "posed a threat" to others on board.
Melissa, who was due to return to Manchester in the early hours of Tuesday morning, claims she has been left by Tui for "at least seven hours" without any food or emergency accommodation with her "traumatised" children forced to sleep on the cold floor.
Tui apologised for the delay and diversion due to the "disruptive" passenger and said they wanted to reassure customers that such instances are "extremely rare".
Melissa, of Bolton, Greater Manchester, said: "I honestly thought I was going to die and that I'd never see my family or children again.
"And I'm not the only person that thought it.
"It was awful, there were so many women screaming and shouting for help and screaming 'oh my God my kids'. All the kids were crying and screaming on the plane.
"It was terrifying. I think I've done all my crying now, I can't cry any more."
Melissa's flight was due to depart from Paphos to Manchester on August 14 but due to knock on operational disruption, the crew were outside of their mandatory working hours and the flight had to be delayed overnight.
The flight was rescheduled to August 15 and departed at just after 8pm.
Melissa said: "When we were queuing to get on the plane and a couple of passengers were talking about a passenger queuing up who was quite rowdy and acting very strangely.
"I questioned it but they didn't tell me anything, they were like 'oh it doesn't matter, we'll be fine, let's all get on the plane'.
"We all got on the plane and he was acting quite strange and I was already scared before this [incident] had happened.
"We took off and two and a half hours into the flight he kept getting out of his seat constantly, walking up and down the aisles and disappearing into the toilet.
"He was being disruptive on the plane and making people quite agitated and scared.
"My daughter was getting really worked up and upset because we could tell he was intoxicated, definitely as he was swaying and stuff like that.
"An air stewardess came to us and said 'we're having difficulty with a passenger on the plane, he's making threats [that threatened our safety].
"That was it then, everyone started getting really upset and panicked."
Melissa claims he was becoming 'really aggressive' to the stewardesses and would only speak to one directly.
Melissa said: "And then all of a sudden he just jumped up in the middle of the plane near the emergency exit and making hand signals to everybody, praying really loudly in a different language.
"In English he was saying stuff like, 'everybody needs to start praying, I'll see you all in heaven'.
"He was trying the emergency exit doors to try and get out the plane and everybody started screaming and shouting 'help, we're going to die'.
"It was like he wanted to kill us all, it was absolutely terrifying.
"Everyone started running to the back of the plane, screaming, grabbing their kids and jumping over seats while he was still praying on the floor.
"The next minute a man jumped up and punched him in the back of the head and all the men ran to him and restrained him, and there was two off duty police officers on the plane and they ran up and basically barricaded him into a seat until we landed.
"And the pilot did a really fast descend to a Croatian airport. We were literally falling out of the sky, it was really traumatic.
"When we got off the plane we got taken into the airport and just got left there. There was no Tui representatives, the airport was just kind of closed.
"There was no one to help us, so for seven hours all the passengers and children were just sleeping on towels on the cold floor in the airport."
Melissa claims she was eventually taken to a hotel in Zagreb.
A Tui spokeswoman said: "We’re very sorry to all customers impacted by the delay to TOM2731 and subsequent diversion due to a disruptive passenger.
"Unfortunately due to on-going disruption with the aviation ecosystem, the original flight was delayed overnight as crew had reached their regulated hours.
"Our Tui reps supported customers throughout and the flight departed on Monday August 15, in the evening.
"The health and safety of our customers and crew is always our highest priority and due to a disruptive passenger the flight was forced to divert to Zagreb, Croatia.
"The passenger was offloaded, was met by police and will not travel with Tui when the flight departs later today. We take a zero-tolerance approach to disruptive behaviour on our flights.
"We understand how frustrating this additional delay will be for our customers and apologise for the ongoing delay they now face.
"We have a Tui team supporting customers in Croatia. We have kept them updated with regular communication, have sourced accommodation and provided meals and refreshments.
"We thank customers for their understanding and patience and would like to reassure customers that instances like this are extremely rare."
