‘Pee-gate’ case: What happened on Air India plane? Co-passenger explains

S Bhattacharjee, a co-passenger of the New York-New Delhi flight has revealed that after the accused urinated on the old lady, the flight crew cleaned her seat, and kept blankets on seat smelling of urine, rather than offering her Shankar Mishra’s seat.

Speaking to ANI, Bhattacharjee said, “Incident happened after lunch was served. He (accused) had four drinks and then was asking me the same questions multiple times. I finished lunch, told the flight attendant to keep an eye on him.”

Following the incident, the co-passenger went to the senior stewardess and asked her to give the old lady another seat, but she refused saying that they had to take permission from the Captain, Bhattacharjee told ANI.

“Only option for her was to move to 1st class as business class was full, what they (flight crew) did was clean her seat & kept blankets on seat smelling of urine. They could’ve given Shankar Mishra’s seat but they didn’t do anything to pacify distressed passenger,” he added.

A Delhi court on Saturday sent Mishra to judicial remand for 14 days while rejecting a plea by police for his custody. Police had registered an FIR against him on January 4 on a complaint given by the woman to Air India.

The airline’s CEO on Saturday issued an apology over handling of the incident and said four cabin crew and a pilot have been de-rostered and the policy of serving alcohol on flights is being reviewed.

Besides, Air India CEO and managing director Campbell Wilson listed steps taken by the management over the November 26 incident.

He listed out a few initiatives that can strengthen the security of air travelers. The steps include commencing a comprehensive education program to strengthen crews’ awareness of and compliance with policies on the handling of incidents and unruly passengers and to better equip crew to empathetically assist those affected.

Further, he said that the airline will review its policy on the service of alcohol on the flight. Air India will also improve the ‘robustness of its incident reporting process, he added.

(With ANI inputs)