Man arrested as plane arrived at YVR now charged
Posted February 3, 2014 2:22 pm.
This article is more than 5 years old.
RICHMOND (NEWS1130) – For the second time in the last few weeks, police have had to deal with someone drinking too much on a flight bound for Vancouver. Now, a man has been charged after getting arrested Sunday morning for causing a disturbance on board a flight arriving at YVR, and that has RCMP warning you not to drink and fly.
Corporal Stephanie Ashton says Richmond RCMP got a call from a pilot at around 6:30am about a man apparently drunk and violent. When the plane landed at 9:30, an Australian man was arrested.
“Subsequently 25-year-old Abdul Zain Ali was charged with mischief, causing a disturbance and assault after the incident that occurred on that plane.”
On January 23rd, 42-year-old Peter LaFond was flagged by flight security as too drunk to fly, and arrested by two off duty officers who happened to be on the plane. He pleaded guilty to causing a disturbance.
Ashton urges you if you’re nervous about flying, alcohol is not the answer.
“Traveling for anyone is stressful, and what we seem to be seeing is more people who are getting beyond the point where they get themselves calm by maybe relaxing before they get on the flight, to the point where they’re drinking to excess and then therefore reacting and more so once they get on the plane. It happens every once in a while where you get someone who ends up consuming more alcohol than they should before flying. Ultimately out of the safety of passengers and the people at the airport we sometimes have to arrest them.”
But Ashton says it’s unusual to have two incidents so close together where there are charges laid. “There have been the odd incidents in the past where someone has been arrested and held, but not necessarily charged,” she says.
As for limiting alcohol in airports and on planes, Ashton says that’s not the RCMP’s jurisdiction.
