A man reportedly urinated on a passenger while flying Air India from New York JFK to Delhi on November 26. According to the woman in her 70s, the man “unzipped his pants, relieved himself and exposed me to his private parts” and the crew did little about it.
She was a business class passenger, there were no empty business class seats available. There were seats free in first class, but she wasn’t allowed to use on of those. Instead for part of the flight she was allowed to sit in a crew seat, and part of the time she had to sit in her soiled seat. Nothing happened to the man inflight, and the incident wasn’t reported to authorities until after the woman wrote to the airline.
Once the incident, and believe it or not another one on Air India, garnered worldwide attention the man was identified as a Wells Fargo executive for India. He’s been fired, and he is being prosecuted.
Now the former Wells manager is employing a classic technique to thwart prosecutors: the Shaggy Defense. He claims it ‘wasn’t me’. Instead, the man says, the woman urinated on herself and is simply deflecting blame.
I did not urinate on complainant. The complainant woman’s seat was blocked. It wasn’t possible for him (Mishra) to go there. The woman has a problem of incontnence. She urinated on herself. She is a Kathak dancer 80% of kathak dancers have this issue.”
Needless to say, dancers who practice the classic dance-drama technique of India… disagree. And reportedly “there is no scientific backing to this claim.”
Delhi | I do not agree with it at all, I think it is the weirdest reasoning that has ever been put forth. Any peeing or not peeing is not related to any vocation at all: Padma Awardee Kathak dancer Shovana Narayan pic.twitter.com/QSu8MsURIc
— ANI (@ANI) January 13, 2023
The defendant’s lawyer says that if his client had done it, clearly other passengers would have intervened. The very fact that this wasn’t an even bigger incident proves that no incident occurred. On second thought, this may not be the Shaggy Defense. In actuality it’s the Chewbacca Defense.
The flight’s pilot and crew have been suspended pending further investigation.
Take a page out of the politicians playbook:
Best defense is to play dumb and deny everything. Then go on offense and trash the accusing party to make them wish they never made the accusation to begin with and show them how miserable a lawsuit will be. Settle out of court early to make yhe problem go away.
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@Doug Maybe you should consider being a bit less judgmental before denigrating an entire race or country as this happened on an LAX-EWR United flight a few years ago. Bad behavior isn’t limited to those who don’t come from wherever it is you are from.
https://gothamist.com/news/man-sues-united-airlines-after-passenger-allegedly-pees-on-him
India air is not the only airline that handles problems poorly. In April 2022 I was on an American flight where there was a line for the bathrooms. A fellow passenger, who couldn’t wait, unzipped his pants and urinated into the corner of the galley. It splashed all over this 72 year old females shoes, legs and pants.
The flight attendants were supposed to follow up with reports and statements upon landing but still can’t see them. According to American Airlines those are confidential. Was given a small credit and offer to have my clothes cleaned. When informed that I disposed of those clothes they offered an AA voucher if I never disclose this information.
Excuses after excuses and nothing verified. Passenger allowed to continue flying rather than being put on the no fly list.
If you dig into the actual facts of the case so far (not just the media sensationalism), there are some questions that need answering.
Both the accuser and accussed were seated in window seats on opposite sides of the aircraft. If the incident did unfold as described, it would be nearly impossible that neither the seatmates, nor the crew, nor any other passengers would have noticed something happening.
The crew incident report filed on the day of arrival says that they were alerted by the accuser after the fact and did not observe anything happening firsthand. They also state that the accused did not appear inebriated and claimed to have no knowledge of the incident, but offered to pay for the drycleaning of the accusers clothes as a goodwill gesture.
No doubt something happened on that flight, but the evidence so far does not point towards the initial narrative being entirely accurate. In the meanwhile, the accused sits in jail having being refused bail by the court.
Air India Slogan
It’s better to be pissed off than pissed on
Another reason my family won’t ever be flying Air India. Piss poor service
@Sean M, thanks for the rational fact-based approach. Most commenters on the internet are morons generally or become morons when commenting. You really have to sort through to find worthy comments these days on most any website or forum.
How can Shankar Mishra now claim that she urinated herself. He had interaction with the victim at the instance of Cabin Crew of Air India as per reports and they have exchanged whatsapp messages. Shankar is said to have compensated her. How come he does a U turn now. The Crew should be called as witness.
Mets Fan and Boraxo won the Internet today. Game over.