'He'd downed 4 glasses of whisky'; 'pilot made woman wait for 2 hrs': Co-flyer in urination row

A US-based doctor of audiology who was seated next to the man who urinated on an elderly female co-passenger on the November 26 Air India flight from New York to Delhi has recalled what had happened on the flight. The doctor had filed a written complaint to the Airline in which he slammed the pilot for making the traumatised woman wait for 2 hrs before allotting her a seat.

New Delhi: More shocking details are emerging of the incident involving a drunk man urinating on an elderly female passenger on an Air India flight last year as a co-flyer who sat next to the inebriated man recalls how the latter had consumed around four glasses of whisky at lunchtime alone before he went and peed on the female passenger.

Sugata Bhattacharjee, a US-based doctor of audiology who was seated next to the accused in business class on the flight to Delhi, in a handwritten complaint to the airlines stated that the distressed passenger was made to go back to her soiled seat despite four seats in the First Class being vacant.

The pilot, according to Bhattacharjee, made the traumatized flyer wait for close to two hours before allotting her a fresh seat, he said in his complaint. He also claimed that the man, who police identified as Shankar Mishra, had downed four glasses of single-malt whisky during lunchtime and was so intoxicated that Bhattacharjee had asked the crew to stop serving him more alcohol.

In the complaint, Bhattacharjee said he was seated on 8A (window) in the first row of business class, next to the accused Shankar Misra who was in seat 8C. Shortly after lunch was served and the lights were switched off onboard AI 102 of November 26 (JFK New York to IGIA, New Delhi), the inebriated male passenger seated in Business Class seat walked to the elderly woman's seat (9A), unzipped his pants and urinated on her.

The lavatory was four rows behind his seat. Bhattacharjee said he was woken up midflight when Shankar fell on him. "I initially thought he lost his balance due to a rough flight. However, as I was going to the restroom, I saw my two fellow passengers of 9A and 9C in distress," he said, adding the lady of 9A came to the gallery area, she was all wet.

"We were shocked to realise that my co-passenger (8C) was so intoxicated that he went to the next row and urinated on her," he wrote. All this while, two air hostesses helped clean her up, change her clothes and sanitized her belongings and seat. "The incidence has a multifaceted part to it. A senior citizen was subjected to trauma due to indecency of a passenger. She being a female had no idea how to cope with the obscenity," he wrote.

"I personally am bothered by the fact that the captain waited close to two hours before allotting her a fresh seat." According to the victim's complaint, she was made to stand for 20 minutes and offered a small seat used by airline staff as no seat was vacant in Business Class. She sat on the small seat for about two hours and was asked to return to her own seat which was still damp and reeking of urine.

When she refused, the victim was offered the steward's seat for the rest of the journey, the complaint stated. Bhattacherjee was all praise for the two cabin crew members who helped the woman clean up. The non-pilot crew, he said, went above and beyond their call of duty "but when you have four first-class seats vacant, you don't make a distressed passenger go back to her (soiled) seat with human remains and wait for a crew seat to be vacant to move her."

This, according to him, was "a poor judgment call by the captain." Bhattacherjee reportedly asked the crew for a complaint book to note down his protest against the handling of the situation but was provided a piece of paper. He wrote his complaint on that paper.