Man arrested for urinating and defecating mid-air on board Air India flight

Rise in mid-air miscondunt on board Indian airlines

An Air India Airbus A320 aircraft takes off (REUTERS)

A man was arrested for allegedly urinating and defecating on the floor of a Delhi-bound aircraft.

The incident took place on Saturday on Air India's flight AIC 866 that had taken off from Mumbai, according to the captain's complaint.

The incident is the latest among many others reported in the past few months of passengers on flights urinating on board or on their co-flyers after getting intoxicated.

The suspect, identified as 40-year-old Ram Singh, reportedly spat, urinated and defecated in row nine of the aircraft.

Following the misconduct, the cabin crew issued a verbal warning while he was secluded from surrounding passengers.

The pilot-in-command was also intimated of the situation and a request for security assistance upon arrival was sent to the company.

"The situation agitated a number of passengers on board the aircraft," the complaint read.

Upon arrival in Delhi, a senior security person escorted the passenger to the police station, where a case was registered under obscenity and misconduct in public by a drunken person.

The suspect was arrested following an investigation, deputy commissioner of police Devesh Kumar Mahla said. "He had not spit on or urinated on any passenger. He had committed misconduct at some other place in the flight," the officer was quoted by the Times of India as saying.

In April, an Indian man travelling on an American Airlines flight from New York to Delhi was arrested after allegedly urinating on a co-passenger during an argument.

India’s aviation regulator imposed a fine of £30,000 on Air India and suspended the pilot in command in January after an inebriated man urinated mid-flight on an elderly woman in November last year.

The passenger, Shankar Mishra, who works with American financial services company Wells Fargo in Mumbai, was arrested by Delhi police almost a month after the incident.

Following an investigation, the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) of India said Air India violated its rules by not taking appropriate action against the passenger who “conducted himself in a disorderly manner and allegedly relieved himself on a female passenger”.