An Irish man has been fined more than £2,000 after becoming abusive on a British Airways flight to Las Vegas because he said he could not use the toilet. Emmet Moynihan, 31, from Co Cork, pleaded guilty to entering an aircraft when drunk and failing to obey the lawful commands of a pilot at Uxbridge Magistrates' Court on Wednesday.
Incident on Heathrow to Las Vegas flight
Moynihan boarded the flight from Heathrow to Las Vegas on August 6, heading to a stag do. The court heard he smelled of alcohol and was clearly drunk. After being told the flight was delayed, he tried to use the toilet and called it a “f****** joke” and verbally abused staff when asked to sit down.
Prosecutor Abigail Day told the court that a passenger had noticed he smelled of alcohol and was clearly drunk during the altercation with the flight crew. She said: “Passengers then began filming him with their telephone and he was lunging towards passengers’ phones saying ‘stop f***** recording me’.”
Videos circulated online
The co-pilot eventually got involved in trying to get Moynihan to sit down. Videos of the incident were circulated online and accrued more than six million views, according to Moynihan’s lawyer Paul Turnbull.
Mr Turnbull said his client had “got past everyone” in his intoxicated state and was only up and about from his seat because “he wanted to use the toilet”. He added: “The defendant was part of a group going to Las Vegas for a stag, there was an element of consumption in Cork and they had access to a lounge at Heathrow.”
Fine and surcharge
Moynihan, of South Douglass Road, Cork, was ordered to pay a £2,224 fine, an £890 surcharge and £85 in costs. In sentencing, Magistrate Sandra Joseph said: “There is only one reason we were not going to send it to the crown court, and that is that the plane was still on the ground and therefore passengers could have been evacuated. However, had they been in the air this would be a completely different matter.”
