The flight headed to Bali was diverted and landed in Chennai after an Iranian woman created a ruckus mid-air learning of her husband's affair.
While her husband was blissfully asleep on a flight from Doha, probably dreaming of Bali, a woman managed to unlock his smartphone and found some excess baggage: she discovered he was cheating on her.
The flight headed to Bali was diverted and landed in Chennai after the Iranian woman created a ruckus mid-air. Security agencies said she was drunk.
The Iranian couple were travelling with their young child on the Qatar Airways flight on Sunday which had no stopover in India.
"On November 5, at about 10 am, Qatar Airways flight QR-962 (Doha-Bali) was diverted to Chennai. A lady along with her husband and a child, all Iranian nationals, were offloaded by the airline, which had no stopover, as the woman created a ruckus and misbehaved with crew members inflight," said a senior security officer.
Sources told Mail Today that the husband fell asleep an hour after take-off. The woman who suspected infidelity took advantage of the opportunity. "She unlocked her sleeping husband's phone by putting his finger on its scanner and after checking the contents realised that her husband was cheating on her," they said.
The woman, who was allegedly inebriated, got into a heated altercation with her husband. When the crew intervened and tried to pacify her she also purportedly misbehaved with them.
"Seeing the situation getting out of hand, the crew decided to offload the woman along with her husband and their child. The pilot diverted the flight to Chennai, where the family was de-boarded. The plane went ahead to Bali leaving them in India," an official said.
Authorities in Chennai decided to keep the family at the airport till the woman got sober. Later, they were put on a plane to Kuala Lumpur and taken to Doha by a connecting flight from there.
"The family was de-boarded due to the ruckus created by her but no FIR was registered as there was no security issue. They stayed in Chennai for a while and later the family was sent to Kuala Lumpur by Batik Air flight 6019 for further travel to Doha," said the official.
Sources said the family also came under some intense security scrutiny because they didn't have any Indian visa.
Qatar Airways issued a statement, saying, "In respect of passenger privacy we do not comment on individual cases."
A Mumbai-based businessman was arrested last month for making a hoax bomb threat on a Jet Airways Mumbai-Delhi flight to get his love.
The passenger admitted to faking a bomb scare to win the affections of a Jet Airways employee. The same man last year created a ruckus and alleged that he was served cockroach in his meal when he was travelling business class. He claimed that he fell ill soon after, but the issue did not get much attention.
In March this year, an Egyptian man hijacked a plane and forced it to divert to Cyprus, demanding to see his ex-wife. He surrendered after a six-hour airport standoff.
A Delta flight had to turn around just 20 minutes after take-off when a couple began fighting with the plane's crew shortly after it left Minneapolis in December 2016. Blake Adam Fleisig, 35, and Anna Christine Koosmann, 36, were both arrested after the plane was diverted.
The chaos began when Koosmann got up to use the restroom shortly after take-off and was told to return to her seat by a flight attendant, one passenger claimed.