Ryanair flight FR8718 from Milan to London Stansted was diverted to Paris Beauvais airport after two passengers began destroying their passports. About 15 minutes into the flight the men became “strange” and “erratic.” One tore pages out of his passport and began eating them, while the other attempted to flush his down the lavatory toilet. On arrival in France, police boarded the aircraft and arrested both men.
Afterward, the flight continued to London. Passengers reported the extreme compensation from the ultra-low cost carrier in the form of free drinks. They speculated,
- Asylum strategy: the men may have been destroying documents to frustrate identification and claim asylum upon landing in the UK. However, passport data is transmitted electronically at check-in to U.K. authorities which would make the passengers matchable with boarding records. Meanwhile, the destruction was done openly, in front of passengers rather than discreetly.
- Mental health issues: which usually don’t affect more than one passenger per flight.
Online observers overwhelmingly think the stunt was an asylum tactic, albeit a clumsy one. It doesn’t seem to have worked.
gees. Who had the energy for all of this? I’m just glad it wasn’t the conclusion I jumped to from the headline and I thought it was a case of massive food poisoning….for the entire plane….
A recent episode of a British murder mystery series showed an African doing exactly that to assure his entry and stay at a halfway house for recent illegal immigrants.
A place to stay while waiting for their asylum hearing.
@Robin Rosner — People driven to desperation do things the rest of us consider irrational. Those in this story wrongly presume that eliminating their passport buys them extra time when claiming asylum. Or, maybe, they recently watched the film 2004 The Terminal with Tom Hanks, and think they’ll get an ‘eat to bite’ with Catherine Zeta Jones….
So, anyone else gonna watch the Senate Judiciary committee debate ‘airline competition’ this afternoon at 2:30PM? Should be a riveting discussion… like, get the popcorn ready… hoping for some zingers from Louisiana’s finest, Mr. John N. Kennedy. “Pretty please. With sugar on top.”
Well, well. A French police officer covering his face. I’m sure the French libs are losing their minds over that one. Then there is that idiot filming the event.
Why inconvenience all the passengers by diverting to Paris? Did the diversion by the airline anything? Seems to me they could have just landed in London.
I had a friend that got a girlfriend into the USA for an asylum case that way from the story he told. She had spent 6 months in prison for being in his presence in Burma (it was officially Burma at that time), which was a crime, and came out needing surgery. I think she was next smuggled into Thailand. He told me he used a computer to generate a legitimate looking passport and visa. That got her on the airplane. While she was on the airplane, he destroyed her documents and flushed them. She claimed asylum when they landed from a very legitimate fear of being put in prison again if she was sent back. She was granted asylum. I met her once. Very pretty but like catching a tiger by the tail.
@Coffee Please — Ah, yes, you totally own’d the French ‘libs’ with that one… zut alors!
Hey Gary, can we quit it with the bizarre AI-generated “illustrations” in the RSS feed? I don’t need some computer’s idea of toilets in the middle of an airplane cabin with people crying in them.
Not only were the individuals who were acting up total losers who deserved a good old-fashioned beatdown, but the person(s) filming should have their behinds kicked, too, the little wimps. Too many people act up in public and need to face a little “street” justice. Only sissy idiots whip out their cameras and start filming instead of helping.
To @1990 , In the US almost all asylum claims turn out to have no merit when they finally have their day in court, something like 70-80%. It’s just a way to abuse a loophole to bypass the law and buy time for economic reasons, not asylum. Many never show up because their claims are BS. It is an insult to true asylum seekers and will probably lead to countries withdrawing from international asylum agreements.
@Nun — Are you advocating suspension of due process? Otherwise, sounds like 20-30% were correct. These days, those that do ‘show up’ and do things the ‘right way’ are met by masked agents for intimidation… This is not the way. 2024, bipartisan immigration and border security bill rejected so #47 could play politics with peoples lives and livelihoods, including many American citizens who rely on immigrants for their businesses. Hey, speaking of, when will our government go after those employers who hire undocumented folks? Huh… odd.
I second the request for not using the lousy AI pics for posts.
Hey, I get why people in sh*thole countries want to get out. I really do. The problem is the West just can’t absorb any more of them. Our resources and programs are already stretched to the limit, and beyond in some cases. Kudos to the Gendarmes for taking these men off of the plane. Hopefully, they’ll be deported promptly.
And yes, I do have a heart, just not for lawbreakers. Immigrate to another country legally according to their laws, period. Otherwise, you get slammed by the Gendarmes, and rightfully so.
@Bill — Nah, you and @Jered are mere outliers… the rest of us welcome our new AI-overlords…
Bob moron, sh*thole countries? If you’re in the US , it’s the pot calling the kettle a sh*thole.
1. Your passport is usually the property of your government, revocable at any time, must be surrendered upon lawful request.
2. These pax committed what could be an act of vandalism, destruction of government property, or whatever floats the boat of the ICAO or IATA, both of which require a valid passport to board certain flights but have zero regulations on what pax can do with property in their possession (whether belonging to them or not). While in the air on an international flight the regulations that are relevant are those two authorities, and the airline’s own regulations. Ryanair’s conditions of carriage only specify your passport must be valid to fly on RA, and for some number of months past your return date, not that you can’t destroy it once verified and boarded and (possibly) get a replacement for the return.
https://www.ryanair.com/us/en/useful-info/help-centre/terms-and-conditions/termsandconditionsar_368204930
3. Flushing garbage down the lav is not a crime. A half-eaten or torn passport is garbage. No crime there.
4. Eating stuff you brought with you is also not a crime.
5. I also don’t see why diverting to France did more than cost Ryanair money and inconvenience the crew and other pax. Of what harm would it have been to land in the UK as scheduled, and let UK passport control, immigration, or other LEOs handle it?
This sounds like a half-hearted attempt to improve an asylum claim, some nosey do-gooder pax, a Ryanair crew that completely overreacted, and now a French LEO/courts issue instead of a UK one. This is only “news” it’s that it’s strange behavior.
It is unclear to me how two pax in Milan qualify for asylum in the UK but who knows where they are pemanently domiciled and whether the Milan stay was on a tourist visa.
Still, in my mind, a lot of trouble — I wonder what crime they were arrested for committing.
@Maureen Flynn, if the US is a shi*hole, its only because of the unfettered usually illegal immigration that has been foisted on us over the past years, much of it by Dementia Joe. Orange Man Bad and ICE are fixing that for us, thank you very much.
The reason people destroy passports is not to delay deportation, but to make it so they can’t identify where to deport them back to. Deportation isn’t just an expulsion, it is a return to the country of citizenship. (Or at least it should be. The US is behaving very badly in this regard, dumping people in places that they aren’t from.)