Drunk man slept inside loo for 30 minutes: Judge recounts unruly flyer incident

Supreme Court judge Justice KV Viswanathan on Tuesday said he and another SC judge, Justice Surya Kant, recently witnessed an unpleasant experience on a flight that also had two drunk co-passengers.
Justice Viswanathan narrated the event during a hearing on a plea seeking measures to deal with unruly flyers.
“We had a recent experience during air travel. Two male passengers were fully drunk. One went to the washroom and slept off. The other one, who was outside and had a bag to vomit. The crew was all women. For 30 to 35 minutes, no one could open the door. The crew then requested my co-passenger to open the door and take him out to the seat. It was a 2.40 hour flight,” he said.
Justice Viswanathan, who was on a bench with Justice BR Gavai, told Solicitor General Aishwarya Bhati that authorities should find a “creative” solution to address the issue of unruly air passengers and a strategic seating plan for flyers was required to be put in place.
The top court was hearing a plea filed by a 72-year-old woman, on whom a male co-passenger allegedly urinated in an inebriated condition on board an Air India flight in November 2022.
Shankar Mishra was accused of urinating on the woman co-passenger on the Air India flight from New York to Delhi.
The incident occurred in the business class section of the Air India flight on November 26, 2022.