British Woman Bites Pilot After Flight, Claims Self-Defense

A British mother and daughter were charged with assault after getting into a heated and strange altercation with flight staff.

Mary Roberts, 53, and her daughter Henrietta Mitaiare, 23, got into a dispute with Swiss International Airlines pilot Guido Keel and flight staff member Ali Chkerdaa over the storage of a baby stroller.

After landing on a flight from Zurich to London, Roberts and Mitaiare reportedly kicked and scratched at the flight staff. Keel said that one of the women bit his upper arm. The conflict began when the women contested the staff’s insistence that a baby carriage be held in storage rather than kept in an overhead bin.

The women were attempting to get Chkerdaa’s name after the flight in order to submit a formal complaint. The dispute reportedly became physical when Keel touched Mitaiare while telling her to leave the plane. Mitaiare reportedly pushed Keel into the cockpit and Roberts later followed, attempting to kick the pilot. Later, by Roberts' admission, she attempted to bite Keel in "self-defense."

The women were removed from the craft by police and arrested. The two have pushed back against their charges, which include failure to obey the lawful commands of an aircraft’s captain and assault by beating.

“She said something [to Capt. Keel] like, ‘Don’t meddle with it, you have nothing to do with it,’” Chkerdaa said. “She said Swiss people are racist, because she was a black woman traveling with a child.”