Airline Passenger Strips Naked Mid-Air, Walks Down Aisle

An Air India Express flight passenger stripped naked and walked down the aisle mid-air in an incident that shocked the co-flyers. The incident took place during a flight heading to Lucknow, India, from Dubai.

The airline crew quickly reacted to the shocking act and wrapped the 35-year-old man with a blanket, according to local news agency ANI. Two crew members then held him down in a seat as the plane made its way to Lucknow.

After the flight landed at the airport, security took custody of the nude passenger.

“As per the direction of the Captain of the flight, the passenger was handed over to Airlines Security at Lucknow Airport where investigation is underway,” Air India Express spokesman told ANI. The plane later embarked on its journey to Dubai.

While the motive of the man remained unclear, airline officials told local daily Times of India that he was suffering “mental trauma” following alleged harassment from his employer.

This is not the first incident where a passenger stripped naked during a flight.

In an incident in February 2018, a man locked himself in an Alaska Airline plane’s bathroom, stripped naked and refused to follow instructions from flight attendants during a Seattle-bound flight. The incident forced the plane to return to Anchorage.

“There was a subject on the aircraft that had barricaded or locked himself in the bathroom,” Sgt. Darcey Perry told local media at the time. “Flight attendants did find that the subject was naked.”

In another similar incident in 2017, a Spirit Airlines flight from Las Vegas to Oakland was delayed after a passenger stripped naked shortly after boarding.

“He removed his clothes and then approached a flight attendant,” McCarran International Airport spokesman Chris Jones told a local NBC News affiliate. Police arrived at the scene and the passenger received medical attention.

There have been several other passenger-related incidents with Air India.

In August 2018, a woman on Twitter complained against an unidentified man who allegedly urinated on her mother's seat during a flight. The woman claimed the man was intoxicated and "fumbled across to her [mother's] seat, removed his pants and urinated on her seat!" The incident took place onboard Air India flight AI 102, which was flying in from New York to New Delhi.