'Air India crew brought offender before me against my wishes': woman passenger on 'peeing' horror

The incident happened on November 26 aboard an Air India New York-Delhi flight. (Representational Image)

The elderly woman upon whom an unruly, drunk passenger urinated in the business class of an Air India flight was made by the crew to sit opposite the offender against her wishes, she has said in a complaint letter to the government’s online grievance redressal platform.

She also said that the pilot did not approve of giving her an alternate seat that was free in the first class.

Narrating her ordeal from November, she said she had insisted to the crew that the man be immediately arrested upon landing.

"The flight staff were in the meanwhile also having discussions with the offender, who was sobering up by this time, and they came and told me that he wanted to apologise to me. I stated clearly that I did not want to interact with him or see his face, and that all I wanted was for him to be arrested on arrival,” the woman, who is in her 70s, wrote on the Air Sewa portal.

“However, the crew brought the offender before me against my wishes, and we were made to sit opposite each other in the crew seats.”

The male passenger, who has now been identified as a man in his 50s from Mumbai, “started crying and profusely apologising” to her, she said.

“I told him that his actions were inexcusable, but in the face of his pleading and begging in front of me, and my own shock and trauma, I found it difficult to insist on his arrest or to press charges against him,” the woman said.

She said her son-in-law wrote a letter to Air India on November 27, a day after the incident, seeking a reimbursement of her ticket.

“To date, they have issued only a partial refund. However, this is hardly sufficient compensation for my traumatic experience.

Amid the outrage and shock over the Air India incident, aviation regulator DGCA on Thursday issued notices to the officials and crew of the New York-Delhi flight, saying that Air India's conduct appeared to be "unprofessional". The regulator asked why action should not be taken against them for "dereliction" of duty while handling the November 26 ''urination'' incident.

The Delhi Police has registered a complaint against the man based on the complaint given by the woman to Air India, they said.

The police said the accused, Shankar Mishra, is the vice-president of the India Chapter of an American multinational financial services company headquartered in California, news agency PTI reported.  "We have written to the authorities in the immigration department to issue lookout circular against the accused to prevent him from leaving the country," a senior police official said.

Air India on Wednesday had said that it has imposed a 30-day flying ban on the accused passenger and set up an internal panel to probe whether there were lapses on part of the crew in addressing the situation.

(With inputs from ANI and PTI)