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Drunk Flight Crew Members Beat Passenger

MOSCOW - Drunken passengers often give air crews trouble, but Russia's leading airline on Tuesday reported an "unprecedented" reversal: A passenger was assaulted by intoxicated flight attendants.

Two crew members on a domestic Aeroflot flight beat up a passenger who had complained that the flight attendants were drunk, airline spokeswoman Irina Dannenberg said.

The passenger, identified only as A. Chernopup, was aboard a recent flight from Moscow to the Siberian city of Nizhnevartovsk, Dannenberg said. She said the crew belonged to another airline, Aviaenergo.

Seeing that the crew were intoxicated and were not fulfilling their duties, Chernopup asked to be served by a sober and competent flight attendant, Dannenberg said. He was then beaten up by crew members.

On Russian flights, attendants often have to struggle to keep intoxicated passengers under control. But on this flight, Dannenberg said, flight attendants were so intoxicated that they "behaved improperly" and only began catering to passengers 1 1/2 hours into the four-hour trip.

The daily Izvestia quoted another passenger as saying that half of the food the crew served ended up on the floor, leaving the aisle strewn with debris that passengers had to walk over as they disembarked.

According to the passenger, Chernopup left the plane with a black eye and was promptly sent to a doctor. Izvestia also reported that a criminal case was opened after Chernopup reported the incident to the police.

Dannenberg said that the plane was carrying out an Aeroflot flight, but both the aircraft and the crew belonged to Aviaenergo. Aeroflot has been contracting out from Aviaenergo since August 2003, but the incident prompted it to tighten control over Aviaenergo's staff, she said.

The entire crew of the flight has been temporarily dismissed and a joint commission is investigating the incident, Dannenberg said.





Dave

Moral of the story, don't mess with Russian cabin crew Just ask if you can join them for a quick tot

Those damn crazy Russians. It sounds like he's not sueing, unless I missed something.  Hats off to the beaten up passenger.

The guy would've been better off seducing the crew

Jeff

Scorp in a lot of countries you can't sue, not everywhere follows the American legal model. He will be entitled to a compensation payment which is laid out in law, and is a fixed amount.
Personally I'd still try blagging the vodka though

Bizzarre

But if it was an Avianergo crew on an Aeroflot flight, why were they doing ANYTHING?

codesharing? or whatever you want to call it.
No offense but these crew members deserve everything they get. Doesnt matter what line of work they are in, assault is assault.

Doesn't matter if it's a codeshare, they still wouldn't be working another airline's planes.

The whole thing doesn't make sense.  And to be honest, I wouldn't be at all surprised to find out that the passenger's report of what happened was completely different than that of the crew...it usually is.

ok latest reports are Aeroflot have nothing to do with it apart from the fact that they are renting a couple of planes from the airline in question or vice-versa
From the reports i have seen scattered around its a pretty accurate account of what happened. Simple fact is crew got drunk and beat up a passenger who was just looking out for the safety of the flight. Doesnt matter what airline was operating the flight there is no excuse for assaulting a member of the flying public or being drunk while on duty, either one would be grounds for immediate dissmissal from any other job why should this be any differant. Any one who has worked in the aviation customer service business whether its  a low lever grunt in a shop in the airport to the flight crews and ticket agents know certain members of the public can be right aholes yet no matter how much we wanted to we just cant turn round and hit them.

ok latest reports are Aeroflot have nothing to do with it apart from the fact that they are renting a couple of planes from the airline in question or vice-versa

This is pointed out in the original article if you read it carefully.

I'm not sure how passengers & crew behaved in the old days of the USSR but it seems a tad ironic that this happened on a flight to Siberia. I have the feeling that the whole flight crew would have been sent there to rot not so many years ago. This sort of thing has been on the increase for a long time, among the passengers - not the crew until now. I think it's time the whole culture of serving alcohol on aircraft was looked into. They banned smoking on passenger flights so maybe it's time they banned the booze too.

Scorp in a lot of countries you can't sue, not everywhere follows the American legal model. He will be entitled to a compensation payment which is laid out in law, and is a fixed amount.
Personally I'd still try blagging the vodka though

Although how many times have people securely thought that, and, surprise!  A lawsuit arrives in the mail!

Scorp you need to spend some time in former E.Europe, its an eye-opener believe me

Well, I shall take you word for it.  And I should also remember the Russian way of doing things...  "Hey Tanya, isn't it about time for lunch?" "By golly Boris, I believe you're right!" "I'm not missing lunch for this!  You guys haven't come up with a compromise?  Bring in the tanks!" Although I'm really just taking a crack at myself. I'm half Russian/Polish/Prussian/German/Rupossman.

The farthest I've been from home is Canada* and Chile, which by all accounts, is like a little slice of Western Europe.

*AKA the 51st state.

You're right, there is no excuse.  And in fact, if you're drunk on duty you're not only fired, but criminally charged as well. (In the US, anyway.)

I'm just saying that the passenger perception of events is almost always different than that of the crew.  Is hitting them wrong?  Absolutely.  But be very wary of the accuracy of the reports, especially this early on in the investigation.