On that day, I was going back to Milan from Berlin, where I was living at the time.
I was assigned the middle seat in row 3. I hate being in the middle! I’m tall, it’s the least comfortable seat, and it’s always hell when the person on the window seat wants to take a piss.
Anyway, I’m settled into my seat and notice a guy in the front row, who looked perfectly normal but didn’t seem to want to sit down. I mean, boarding was long over, we were about to take off and the guy still wouldn’t sit down, until the flight attendant asked him one last time to do so.
We’d barely been airborne, literally seconds, when the guy turned to the fellow behind him and said:
“Well then, shall we crash this plane?”
Which left the other passengers pretty surprised!
Then, with the fastened seatbelt sign still on, the guy gets up to go to the bathroom. Needless to say, everyone in the front rows was getting nervous and wondering what the hell this guy was doing. From my seat, I could see him in the reflection of the toilet mirror (he hadn’t completely closed the door behind him), which was far from reassuring… The guy was literally talking to himself in the mirror, looking very agitated and seeming to be trying to motivate himself about something! Scary!
After a few moments he returns to his seat. While everyone was watching him now, the guy seemed increasingly agitated and kept staring at the plane door. At this point, he was really starting to freak everyone out, which he must have sensed since his agitation level clearly increased and he started insulting everyone while moving around the aisle of the plane.
At this point, it was obvious that even the staff seemed overwhelmed by the situation, but the pilot made a rather smart move as he announced over the microphone that we were about to land in Milan, I guess to calm the guy down, even though we’d only been taking off for 15 minutes. But unfortunately this technique didn’t have the desired effect, as the freak didn’t calm down at all!
As he strolled down the aisle, he bumped into a guy one row back, whom he proceeded to insult profusely by way of apology. The mere fact that the guy got up was a relief. I mean, the guy was a mountain! Probably of Maori origin, he was nearly 2 meters tall and must have weighed at least 150 kilos! I noticed later that he occupied two seats by himself! Keeping his cool, the Maori walked over to a stewardess to understand the situation. The guy had been asleep the whole time and didn’t wake up until the other weirdo had pushed him!
At the same time, the tension increased further in the plane as the other madman, who had returned to his seat, began to try to open the doors of the plane. It was then that the Maori decided to manage the situation his own way. He calmly walked over to the other guy and said in the calmest of calms:
“Either you sit down or I’ll make you sit down.”
Unfortunately for our idiot of the day, rather than complying, he decided to insult the Maori again. It was a step too far…
In fact, our hero grabbed the side of his face with one hand and slammed him on the top of his seat a good ten times, without the other being able to do anything! While keeping him under control, he asked the other two people in row 1 to go and sit in the seats he occupied alone, sat the other guy in his seat, fastened him with his belt and sat next to him, making him understand as one does with a small child, that it was in his interest not to move. Obviously the little lesson he received a few seconds before had put his ideas back in place since we didn’t hear him again for the rest of the flight. Upon landing, it was the Italian police who came to remove the recalcitrant from the plane.
Being from Milan and living in Berlin, I made the trip regularly. I have to admit that this trip was by far the fastest one!
