Police remove passengers from Virgin flight at Gatwick
Police were called to remove passengers after a disturbance on a Virgin Atlantic flight about to leave London Gatwick for Montego Bay.
The incident on Friday caused the flight to be delayed by four hours.
A Sussex Police spokeswoman said three men, who were being deported from the UK and were accompanied by escort officers, became violent and had to be restrained.
"A number of passengers became involved and a taser was drawn by a Sussex Police officer but not discharged," said the spokesman.
"A total of five passengers were escorted from the plane before take-off at the request of the captain. No arrests were made.
"The detainees were also removed from the flight and taken to Harmondsworth Detention Centre where they remain."
A spokeswoman for Virgin said: "The safety and security of our customers and crew is our number one priority we would like to apologise for the delay and any inconvenience caused.
"Disruptive passengers are very rare on our flights but we take such behaviour extremely seriously and will not tolerate anything that disrupts the experience of our other customers."
Agent Jenny Jackson, at travel-pa.com, had clients on the flight in question.
She posted on the agent Facebook forum Travel Gossip: "Apparently there was a near riot on VS65 yesterday LGW into MBJ and the flight was 4 hours late leaving Gatwick. Not sure what happened.
"I had 6 passengers in Upper Class so luckily they were not party to the fracas, but it delayed over 400 passengers."
Bev
Editor in chief Bev Fearis has been a travel journalist for 25 years. She started her career at Travel Weekly, where she became deputy news editor, before joining Business Traveller as deputy editor and launching the magazine’s website. She has also written travel features, news and expert comment for the Guardian, Observer, Times, Telegraph, Boundless and other consumer titles and was named one of the top 50 UK travel journalists by the Press Gazette.
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