A British woman who tried to open the door of a plane in a drunk rampage midway through a flight while shouting, “I’m going to kill you all” has reportedly been jailed for two years and banned for life from the airline. Chloe Haines, 26, was on an evening Jet2 flight on June 22 from Stansted Airport, east of London, bound for Dalaman, in southwestern Turkey, with 206 people on board when she scratched a crew member and lunged at the plane door. Haines pleaded guilty to “endangering the safety of an aircraft and common assault,” her lawyer Oliver Saxby said on Thursday. Fellow passengers helped the crew restrain Haines while two military jets were summoned from the Royal Air Force to escort the plane back to Britain. Officers boarded the aircraft after it landed at Stansted Airport and arrested Haines, who later said she “blacked out and didn’t really remember what happened” after mixing alcohol with medication, according to prosecutor Michael Crimp.
Saxby told the court on Wednesday that Haines “wasn’t just drunk, she was unwell” and that she was “deeply embarrassed by what she did.” Her lawyer said she “sobbed throughout the hearing.” The airline’s chief executive Steve Heapy said on Wednesday that Haines’ conduct was “one of the most serious cases of disruptive passenger” behavior the airline had experienced. Haines was fined more than 85,000 pounds, over $100,000, for the incident, which Jet2 said cost them 86,000 pounds.