Passengers on a Ryanair flight waiting to take off were delayed after a man became ‘disruptive’ and removed his trousers on the plane.
Spanish police escorted the young Irishman off the Dublin-bound flight after cabin crew alerted the authorities to the incident on board the plane waiting to depart at Alicante Airport.
Flight FR7063 had been meant to take off at 2.35pm local time but the plane was delayed by 40 minutes "after a passenger became disruptive on board".
Other passengers on the Ryanair flight said man’s behaviour became “hysterical” after airline crew tried to take away bottles of booze he was clutching.
One said that people were “afraid” of the man’s worrying behaviour, including removing his trousers because he said he was too hot.
A passenger, whose wife was sitting near the man, said she had recounted to him how he took his trousers off shortly after sitting down and proceeded to become more disorderly, the Irish Mirror reports.
"Nobody noticed anything when he got on, he didn't seem too bad but when he sat down he got up and took off his trousers," he said.
"[My wife] said that he said to the woman beside him that he gets very hot on the plane, and then she said to me, 'I kind of copped then he was under the weather.
"He had bottles on his lap, maybe four or five litres of spirits, and the stewardess asked to take them off him because she wanted to stow them up safely.
"But he wouldn't let them go, he said they were presents and they weren't taking them and he got a bit hysterical then.
"Then they called the other cabin steward and he came down and they were just trying to pacify him and he got a bit abusive then and told them he couldn't take his stuff and he had rights."
The doors to the aircraft had already been closed at this stage, with cross-check completed and the plane ready to pull away from the stand.
While the man had put on his trousers again at this point, someone then "made the decision" to have him removed from the plane "as he refused to cooperate with anything", the passenger added.
"As [my wife] was saying from chatting with people afterwards, thank God they got him off because if he was like that now, what would he have been like in an hour's time into the flight," he said.
"[The cabin crew] handled it extremely well, there was no big bust-up, there was no violence.
"It was three policemen who came on first, then there was another three, so I don't know whether they thought he was going to get rough or not."
As he was being escorted from the plane, the man then made "a big deal about a suitcase" which led to more delays.
However, it emerged that he had not in fact placed any luggage in the hold.
While people were mostly "peed off" by the incident, they were also worried about whether the situation could escalate, he explained.
"People were afraid, they were more afraid of what could have happened if the stewardess had not intervened because he was getting lairy," he said.
"He wasn't threatening anyone...but you never know, if it was an hour into the flight it would have been twice as bad."
After the man was removed from the aircraft, the flight departed Alicante and subsequently landed in Dublin Airport at 5.03pm local time, just 23 minutes later than scheduled.
A spokesperson for Ryanair said: “This flight from Alicante to Dublin (07 February) was delayed ahead of take-off after a passenger became disruptive on board.
"Crew alerted local police who removed the passenger from the aircraft, and the flight departed following a short delay of approx. 40 mins. Ryanair apologises to affected passengers for this delay.”
