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Drunk British passengers who tried to open plane door caught on camera

This image is from a video recorded by a terrified passenger show two drunk girls being confronted by German police after their plane was forced to emergency land when one tried to open a door at 30,000ft.

The air rage row erupted on a flight from Kos to Manchester last Wednesday after the yobbish girls were refused more alcohol.

One passenger said: "It was a hell of a scene. One was lashing out with a vodka bottle after they were refused more booze.

"One went to the emergency exit and screamed: 'I want some fresh air.' It was a nightmare.

"The crew were brilliant, wrestling them to the ground and slapping plastic cuffs on them. We thought we'd had it."

The ponytailed Brits, still in their holiday gear, were drunk before their early afternoon flight took off last Wednesday.

When ordered to stop boozing, the girls began yelling and tried to attack staff before passengers helped cabin crew handcuff them – the pilot then made an emergency landing at Frankfurt, Germany.

A video taken by a fellow passenger shows the girls being marched away by at least three cops wearing body armour. As the pair were led off the Boeing 737 in handcuffs, relieved travellers jeered "Auf Wiedersehn" at the girls.

The women, aged 26 and 27 and thought to be from Merseyside, were back in the UK last night, waiting to hear if they face air rage charges in Germany.

Student Nathan Sivajoti, 18, of Wetherby, West Yorks, said: "They were really loud and foul-mouthed.

"A family with children asked them to tone down their language. The girls started shouting and it escalated from there. Stewards tried to calm it down. The pilot came on and said, 'We'll kick you off and we're over Serbia – and the police in Serbia aren't nice'.

"But they didn't calm down and started shouting at other passengers. They were calling one of the stewards names. One of them said, 'I want a piece of him'. Then they started having a go at a ginger passenger.

"But the worst came when one of them slapped a mum. The pilot then said he was landing and one girl tried to light a cigarette but was stopped. One of them tried to open the door but the pressure was too great."

Runways had to be cleared and other planes forced to circle to clear the way for the Boeing to land. After refuelling it continued to Manchester.

A spokesman for XL Airways warned: "We are considering legal action. The crew responded swiftly and bravely and we thank passengers who helped.

Norwegian tourist falls asleep on airport baggage belt

Rome's Fiumicino airport has defended its security procedures after a drunk Norwegian tourist fell asleep on a baggage belt and travelled 160 feet before being identified by an X-ray scanner.

The 36-year-old, who has not been named, arrived at the international terminal of Italy's busiest airport at the end of last month with a backpack and a can of beer in his hand.

The Norwegian was due to check in for a flight to Oslo and when he found no one on duty at the airline desk he leapt across the counter and fell into a deep asleep on the baggage belt with his bag beside him.
As the belt began to move the unsuspecting tourist reportedly travelled for 15 minutes through the secure baggage area in Terminal 3 before officials spotted his body curled up in a foetal position in an X-ray image on their monitors.

He slept through the whole episode and airport police had trouble waking him when they were called to the scene to investigate what had happened.
A senior officer with Fiumicino airport police said on Thursday the incident exposed no weaknesses in the terminal's security and it was not the first kind of incident involving "drunks or people with psychological problems".

"There's usually an episode like this once a year and we are alert," the official said. "In this case we were notified we sounded the alarm immediately and we took action."
Another police officer told the Italian daily, La Repubblica : "It's impossible to avoid a situation like this if there's no employee at the check-in desk."

Concerned about the tourist's exposure to the powerful X-rays, police took him to a nearby hospital before reporting him to prosecutors at Civitavecchia for causing alarm at the airport. Inquiries are continuing.