'Disruptive' passenger forces Air Canada flight back to Beijing

[AroundTheWorld]

'Disruptive' passenger forces Air Canada flight back to Beijing

PUBLISHED : Thursday, 20 August, 2015, 11:29pm
UPDATED : Thursday, 20 August, 2015, 11:51pm

Nectar Gan and Naomi Ng

An Air Canada plane was forced to return to Beijing two hours into a flight on Tuesday. Photo: Xinhua

A Toronto-bound flight was forced to turn back to Beijing when a passenger became “disruptive” about two hours into the journey on Tuesday.

A spokeswoman for Air Canada, the operator of the flight, confirmed the incident occurred but did not specify what the passenger did.

The AC032 flight with 321 passengers on board was met by the police when it returned to Beijing Capital International Airport, the spokeswoman said.

According to a report by Cannews.com.cn, a news website affiliated with China’s aviation industry news agency CAN Press, the flight headed back because a business class passenger allegedly harassed a flight attendant.

A passenger said the Boeing 777 was already in Russian airspace when the incident took place. He claimed that the passenger was trying to sexually harass the attendant, the report said.

The aircraft was delayed in Beijing for six hours before taking off again, according to the report.