News
Man acting violently on flight arrested in Vancouver

Richmond RCMP said a pilot had reported at about 6:30 a.m. PT that a
passenger was "acting violently" on the China Southern Airlines flight,
and had to be restrained.

A passenger on that plane, Tanya Truong, told CBC News that the
man — who seemed to be in his 30s and may have had an Australian
accent — was behaving strangely even before they all boarded the plane
at Guangzhou Baiyun Internatioanal Airport.

"When we were lining up to get on to the flight from Guangzhou, we had already noticed him," she said. "He appeared slightly rowdier than the rest."

But the trouble began about halfway through the 11½-hour flight, she said.

"Everyone was asleep and the lights were turned off in the plane, and he ran down the aisles, screaming and yelling at someone and alarming everyone and waking everyone one up.

"There were several flight attendants trailing him and, I think, trying to get him to calm down.

"He was just screaming a lot of swear words at one of his family members," she said.

Some passengers who had been sitting near him later told Truong
that they suspected he had been intoxicated, and overheard flight
attendants telling him to stop drinking.

After about an hour or two of the flight attendants keeping
watch on him in the back of the plane, first in the kitchen area and
then in the back row seated with one of the flight attendants, things
apparently got worse.

"Other flight members had to get involved," Truong said.

"He kept trying to provoke the flight attendant," she said. "I
think this definitely alarmed a lot of people because this was really
loud, and it looks like he was trying to harm the flight attendant, so he had to be taken down."

"Several people had to, kind of like, sit on top of him, and then he was handcuffed," she said.

The flight attendants announced that because the passenger has
compromised the safety of the other passengers, he would be taken into
police custody when the plane landed.

Richmond RCMP arrested the passenger just after 9:30 a.m. PT at Vancouver International Airport.

Cpl. Stephanie Ashton said he was taken into custody and is being held at the Richmond RCMP Detachment until he appears in court on Monday.

Ashton said "it is unknown where the man originates from or the purpose of his travel to Canada."

Truong said some of the passengers who spoke with the man's
family members on the flight said the family had talked about being on
their way to go to Whistler to snowboard.