Further details have emerged of a brawl involving nine people on board Ryanair flight RUK3034 from Agadir to Stansted on July 3. During the rapidly evolving sequence of events
- A row broke out between two families over seat swapping.
- A man became angry when a woman refused to move seats.
- The woman’s husband defended her and a physical altercation broke out.
- Cabin crew tried to intervene as the fight escalated into a mass brawl.
- The plane diverted to Marrakech, landing just 36 minutes into the journey.
- Moroccan police met the aricraft and removed the nine passengers involved in the fight.
- Another passenger fell ill and required oxygen, causing further disruption.
- The ill passenger became abusive towards cabin crew and police and was removed from the plane.
- Due to the disruptive passengers and the ill passenger, the flight crew reached their maximum flying hours.
- All passengers were disembarked, taken to a hotel for the night, and rebooked on a flight the following day.
- That flight was subsequently cancelled and a second aircraft sent to rescue the passengers.
Ryanair issued a statement: we apologised for the ‘diversion and subsequent delay caused by a small group of disruptive passengers. This passenger refused to disembark and became abusive towards crew and was also removed from the aircraft by airport gendarmerie. As it took almost 2hrs in total to treat and offload these disruptive passengers, the crew reached their permitted flying hours and the flight was delayed overnight. Affected passengers were provided with overnight accommodation and transport to/from the airport. This flight departed to London the following day (4 July). We sincerely apologise to passengers for this diversion and subsequent delay caused by a small group of disruptive passengers, which was out of Ryanair’s control.”
