Plane scene over smoking

BY TIM JONES

AN ENRAGED businessman had to be removed from the flight deck of a jumbo jet when he burst in to complain about people smoking, a court was told yesterday.

John Bagwell had stormed through the aircraft after passengers sitting near him lit up on the flight from South Africa to London in December. Joseph Boothby, for the prosecution, told Isleworth Crown Court in West London: "He started screaming at some of the smokers, ordering them to put their cigarettes out. The smoking section responded with a barrage of abuse." Mr Bagwell yelled: "You are all savages and animals," and told an air hostess she was "pathetic".

Mr Boothby explained that South Africa Airways permitted smoking in the three front rows of economy class. Mr Bagwell had been given a seat right behind them.

The aircraft had just reached cruising height when Captain Johannes De Wet was confronted by the screaming and gesticulating economy-class passenger. He had screamed at the on-board service manager and demanded to be upgraded to first class. He had then become incensed when a flight engineer was sent to see him instead of the captain. The crew managed to get Mr Bagwell to sit in another economy class seat away from the smoking section and for a time, Mr Boothby said, he appeared to calm down. But when the captain toured the aircraft to see everything was in order, he shouted abuse at him.

Mr Bagwell, 42, of Mayfair, who was arrested at Heathrow, denies endangering an aircraft and affray. Mr Bagwell, who suffers from various medical conditions, had denied losing his temper but said he was sensitive to smoke and needed to assert his rights. The trial continues.

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