British Airways Crew Fabricates Mugging to Cover Up Wild Night in Rio

British Airways cabin crew told the airline they were mugged in order to mask a night of “drinking and debauchery” according to a version of events told by Brazilian authorities, surveillance footage, and eyewitness accounts.

British Airways flight 248 from Rio to London Heathrow had to be cancelled on September 6th. And some are connecting the dots to these three crewmembers, who had supposedly been robbed. Twice. First at a gas station where they’d been dropped off by taxi, and then again in an Uber by someone on a motorbike. A third flight attendant was robbed after blacking out on the street following a drink at a bar.

Except that police say surveillance camera footage shows that the stories being told aren’t true. The crewmembers engaged in “a night of heavy drinking and drug use” and the robbery story was just a cover for being unable to work the flight back to London.

  • Two flight attendance are on video drinking during the hours of the night they were supposedly mugged. (While one phone was apparently taken, officials say there was no mugging.)

  • The third crewmember drank enough to black out, and reportedly had cocaine in his possession.

According to an assistant police chief, “They created these stories to try to probably justify inappropriate behavior outside the company’s rules.” Meanwhile the head of special tourism support police offers,

What is surprising is how a crew that has such an important role spends the whole night drinking and using drugs, knowing that the next day they would have the responsibility of taking care of dozens of people who would travel for hours.

According to British Airways, though, the crew who ‘made up’ these stories wasn’t scheduled to work the cancelled flight back – which is a mystery – and defers additional comments to local police. That’s probably the most bizarre part of this story. If they didn’t cause the cancellation, what possible reason was there for a made up story?

Recently a British Airways pilot snorted coke off of a topless woman, then tried to fly passengers to London.

And back in the day British Airways Mixed Fleet cabin crew reportedly would party pretty extensively at the Ole Sereni Hotel in Nairobi, but several international locations have been hot spots.

Several years ago flight attendants at BA were told they had to stop running naked through the halls of their layover hotels. But it’s usually just been antics in good fun, not hard drugs or fake police reports.

(HT: Live and Let’s Fly)

About Gary Leff

Gary Leff is one of the foremost experts in the field of miles, points, and frequent business travel - a topic he has covered since 2002. Co-founder of frequent flyer community InsideFlyer.com, emcee of the Freddie Awards, and named one of the "World's Top Travel Experts" by Conde' Nast Traveler (2010-Present) Gary has been a guest on most major news media, profiled in several top print publications, and published broadly on the topic of consumer loyalty. More About Gary »

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Comments

  1. That flight compensation law probably cause BA hundreds of thousands of dollars! If they denied any claims this story is going to make sure those people get their paid lol

  2. @AZTravelGuy remembers what most have forgotten.

    Sad but true to say, if you see somebody publicly drunk while acting stupidly and/or violently, whether in Rio or anywhere else in the world, there is an excellent chance you are looking at a Brit, a Scot, or an Australian. This is a particular cultural affliction that absolutely ruins certain destinations from the Canary Islands to Bali.

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