Passenger goes ‘naked’ on Melbourne-bound Virgin Australia flight, arrested

A man was arrested at the airport by police after allegedly running naked down the aisle of an Australian domestic flight, knocking over a flight attendant, and causing the plane to turn back, said officials on Tuesday. 

The incident happened early on what was scheduled to be a 3-hour and 30-minute Virgin Australia flight on Monday night from the West Coast city of Perth to Melbourne on the East Coast, AP reported. 

In an official statement, the airline said, “Flight VA696 returned to Perth Airport due to a disruptive passenger. Australian Federal Police officers were waiting for the plane and the disruptive guest was offloaded.”

“Officers arrested a man after he allegedly ran naked through the aircraft mid-flight and knocked a crew member to the floor. The man was transferred to hospital for assessment, where he remains,” police said. 

However, it's not yet clear how or where the passenger removed his clothes on the plane. Police plan to summon the man to appear in a Perth court on June 14, though the specific charges he will face have not yet been determined.

The airline apologised to the guests impacted by the incident, saying their safety was its top priority. Australian Broadcasting Corp. reported that it understood nobody was injured during the incident.

This is not the first time that such a video has gone viral. In another weird incident, a video of a woman stretching her feet to the fullest inside an overhead luggage compartment on a Southwest Airlines flight had gone viral earlier this month. 

The flight was scheduled from Mexico's Albuquerque to the US' Phoenix on 6 May. The woman was sleeping peacefully in the storage space, and people laughed. However, it was unclear how the woman reached the storage space.

Before this, a flight attendant of Southwest Airlines did a similar gag as she hid in the overhead bin before passengers boarded. It was captured by a stunned passenger named Veronica Lloyd, travelling to Pennsylvania. 

Later, the airline clarified that the flight attendant jumped down from the compartment 10 minutes later and after that the flight proceeded without any interruptions.

(With AP inputs)