When the pilot announced our return to JFK, I braced for the usual reasons. But what unfolded was a surreal tale that left the entire cabin in disbelief.
A British man performed a lewd act on a flight (Image: Getty)
When a pilot calmly announces that you’re turning back to your origin airport, there are only a handful of reasons you expect to hear: a small technical issue, a medical emergency, maybe even a security threat. What you don’t expect is what really happened on my flight this week: a story that still feels too surreal to believe.
About an hour into our journey, just as we were nearing the Canadian border, the captain came over the tannoy. “A small technical issue,” he said, meant we needed to return to JFK so engineers could take a look. The flight attendants reassured us it wasn’t dangerous, but my stomach dropped anyway.
I pictured some vital system malfunctioning, engines cutting out mid-air; or the worst-case scenario- the plane falling out of the sky. As we descended, other possibilities crossed my mind. Maybe someone onboard was gravely ill. Maybe ambulances would be waiting when we landed. What I didn’t expect to see were two police cars pulled up outside the aircraft. No engineers. No paramedics.
Just flashing blue lights and a handful of serious-looking officers.Then the whispers started. A young man, apparently British (to my utter horror – because I was hoping to chalk this up to “one of those crazy Yanks” stories), had allegedly spent the flight engaging in behaviour so vile it left an entire cabin reeling.
According to passengers nearby, he propositioned a stranger with the line, “ever had a hand job on a plane?” and, after being shut down, allegedly exposed himself, began pleasuring himself openly, even showing explicit pictures of himself on his phone and attempting to touch the passenger beside him. After much cajoling from the crew, he finally walked off the plane to meet the police waiting below.
No handcuffs, just a brisk, quiet exit – but the damage was done. The entire aircraft had been delayed for hours because one man couldn’t keep his trousers, or his impulses, in check. It would be comforting to think this was a one-off, an isolated act of depravity at 35,000 feet. But increasingly, it doesn’t seem to be. Just last week, a couple made headlines for having sex on a flight.
More and more, public spaces – trains, planes, even restaurants – seem to be plagued by people doing things they wouldn’t dream of a decade ago. Lewdness is losing its shame factor, and the rest of us are being forced to witness it.Eventually, we took off again with a new crew, the plane itself perfectly fine.
The human race, on the other hand, feels like it’s hurtling towards a nosedive. Because no passenger should board a flight expecting to become an unwilling extra in a live-action, low-rent adult film. And no one should have to explain, dead-eyed and exhausted, that their flight was delayed not by weather, nor by mechanical failure, but by a fellow Brit treating economy class like a Pornhub livestream.I just wish I could say it was an American this time.
