Accused Bahraini was travelling on FlyDubai flight to Dubai.
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A Bahrain citizen in on trial in Dubai for threatening to blow up the plane while travelling from Bahrain to Dubai on flydubai airlines .
An elderly passenger threatened of blow up a FlyDubai flight a little after it took off from his native Bahrain as he was not offered alcohol and stopped from moving to business class, the Dubai Criminal Court heard.
On January 21, the flight took off at around 6pm from Bahrain airport carrying on board 129 passengers and a crew of five people.
“A little while after taking off, passenger MK started shouting and causing a nuisance in the plane. The crew tried to calm him down but he did not respond,” testified the carrier’s legal affairs consultant.
The passenger asked Moroccan air hostess SH, 24, to change his seat. The latter told him that he has to pay Dh100 for that.
The passenger paid the amount and then opened a can of beer that he had brought with him.
An airhostess took the can from him as he was already drunk.
The passenger got angry and asked for a can of beer from a box on top of his seat. When an airhostess refused, he shouted at the crew saying that he had a weapon and will use it.
The crew tried to calm him down and made him sit on his seat.
The passenger then tried to enter the business section. One of the hostesses prevented him. He pushed her strongly and then tried to get into the toilet. On his way he saw airhostess SH and he made an indecent gesture to her and asked her to accompany him to the toilet. When asked why she should go with him to the toilet, he made a sexual gesture.
When he came out of the toilet, MK started shouting and screaming that he had a bomb that he will explode on the plane, testified SH.
The passenger continued making noise and caused chaos on the plane.
The crew informed the pilot and the latter asked them to control the passenger until the plane arrived in Dubai.
On landing, the passenger asked an air hostess to bring down his handbag from the box above his seat. The passenger opened the handbag and drank a number of cans of beer.
MK, 68, was handed over to police at the airport.
MK is facing five accusations, including assaulting crew, threatening to blow up a plane and subjecting other passengers’ lives to risk, attacking a woman and making indecent gestures and consuming and possessing alcohol.
MK denied the accusations and claimed that he had taken a medicine before boarding and that the drugs made him unable to remember what happened in the plane later.
