Australia: Man arrested for running naked through plane’s aisle, forces flight to turn back

A man was arrested after he was accused of running naked down the aisle of an Australian domestic flight.

The man was arrested at the airport by the police on Tuesday after he allegedly knocked down a flight attendant while running naked through the aisle of the flight.

The incident happened early in what was scheduled to be a 3-hour and 30-minute Virgin Australia flight on Monday night from the west coast city of Perth to Melbourne on the east coast.

Due to the incident, the flight was forced to turn back and return to the airport. Flight VA696 returned to the Perth Airport shortly after taking off due to a “disruptive passenger,” an airline statement said.

Virgin Australia’s official statement said that Australian Federal Police officers were waiting for the plane, and “the disruptive guest was offloaded” shortly after the incident.

Police said “officers arrested a man after he allegedly ran naked through the aircraft mid-flight and knocked a crew member to the floor”. The police statement said, “The man was transferred to hospital for assessment, where he remains.”

The police are likely to summon the man to appear before a court in Perth on June 14. What charges he will face have yet to be finalized. It is not clear how, where or why the passenger removed his clothes on the plane.

The airline apologized to “guests impacted,” adding the safety of passengers and crew was its top priority. Both the airline and police declined to comment beyond their statements.

Witness accounts from the flight said that there was a lot of “yelling and screaming”, and the man charged towards the front of the plane without no clothes on.

Australian Broadcasting Corp. reported that it understood nobody was injured during the incident, while a flight attendant was knocked down while the man ran down the plane aisle.

The flight continued on its course after the man was offboarded, and landed in Melbourne 28 minutes late.