On Monday evening 46 year old Aussie Gregory Butler reportedly pounded on the cockpit door of an AirAsia flight AK371 at 9:20pm from Bali to Kuala Lumpur claiming that someone was trying to kill him — causing the pilot to return to the gate.
Curiously, the man wasn’t taken into custody or apparently even questioned. The flight was cancelled, the man left the aircraft, and thus began a ‘freak out’ and 90 minute standoff where he went up on the airport’s ledge and began to shout… not that he was going to kill himself, just that he was trying to call attention to corrupt Australian politicians.
Back in the airport, he went onto a narrow ledge of the second floor overlooking the busy departures area, shouting and screaming.
An Austrian man tried to negotiate with him and calm Butler down by going onto the ledge himself, but it ultimately took a group of officers wrestling the man down, to put an end to the 90-minute scene.
Airport security eventually pulled the man down from the ledge:
Butler was “led off, given sedatives, and taken to Sanglah Hospital in Denpasar in an ambulance for psychiatric and medical testing.”
(HT: Kalil D.)
Balinese hospitality. Even if you want to do a suicide (as long as its not bomb) they would silently watch from afar….
You say he’s Australian at the beginning, and by the end of the story he’s become Austrian.
My Bad, I read that too fast.