‘Hammered’ passenger dragged off Ryanair flight by police for vaping

‘Bit over the top if you ask me,’ writes fellow passenger who filmed incident

A drunk passenger was removed from a Ryanair flight on Saturday for vaping onboard, with two vans of police officers summoned to detain him.

The incident occurred on Saturday, 11 June, on a flight waiting to take off for Ibiza from Manchester Airport.

Fellow passenger Alex Jackson shared the footage of police boarding the plane to remove the offending passenger, captioning it: “Bit over the top if you ask me.”

Since then, his video has had more than 2.1 million views.

Mr Jackson told The Sun: “We were on the plane and two guys right at the front of the plane were absolutely hammered.

“We were delayed already so everyone was already a bit agitated anyway.

“I didn’t see it but apparently one of the guys down the front started vaping.

“The flight attendant took it off him and the guy was asking for it back and he said no and that they were phoning the police.

“He said he would cooperate with them, it wasn’t too heated or anything.”

All airlines have banned the use of vapes or e-cigarettes on planes.

In October 2018, a flight operated by Turkish carrier Pegasus had to make an emergency landing after a passenger’s e-cigarette caught fire mid-flight.

Mr Jackson told reporters that there had been two police vans and around eight officers present when the man was dragged off the plane.

“His mates were just in front of me, they said he always does stuff like this and that they weren’t too shocked,” he added.

“I wasn’t bothered, I was just trying to get to Ibiza.”

Manchester Police today named the passenger as 23-year-old Jack Stringer, confirming that he had been charged with a public order offence and will appear at Manchester and Salford Magistrates Court on 3 August.

One TikTok user commented: “Imagine being so addicted to his vape that he’d rather try and sneak some than just wait ’til after this flight.”

User Una Lynch replied to Mr Jackson’s original caption: “Not over the top at all. People know the rules.”

Another user wrote: “I think someome getting arrested is part of the Ryanair experience.”

A Ryanair spokesperson said: “The crew of this flight from Manchester to Ibiza called for police assistance ahead of departure after a passenger was found vaping onboard the aircraft.

“In accordance with policy, smoking/the use of e-cigarettes is strictly prohibited at any time onboard the aircraft and this passenger was removed by police.”