7 reasons not to be the drunk passenger on a plane

The injustices of flying are numerous. After shelling out a huge wad of cash just to check a bag, we walk barefoot through security, fold ourselves into ever-shrinking seats, wait hours on the tarmac, and sustain ourselves on only a half a can of Coke during a five-hour flight. It's easy to see why it's even more infuriating to bear these hardships in the company of a drunken, rowdy passenger who acts as though this winged silver tube hurtling through the sky is actually his local dive bar. It's one thing to indulge in a mid-flight drink or two, but it's quite another to get flat-out wasted. And news flash: Rarely does doing so work to your advantage. So please, dear passengers, keep your trays up, your seats back, and your alcoholic beverages to a minimum or else…

1. You'll cause the plane to land nowhere near your destination

On a recent flight from London to Tunisia, two allegedly drunk middle-aged women swore in front of children, smoked in the bathroom, threatened the family of a flight attendant, demanded to see the captain while in flight, and then proceeded to march their rum-soaked behinds toward the cockpit. Needless to say, such actions aren't well received in this post-9/11 world. The flight was forced to make an emergency landing in France, and the two were taken into police custody and will reportedly be banned for life from British Airways.

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2. You'll be forced to spend the remainder of the flight taped to the seat

On a Jan. 3 flight from Reykjavik, Iceland, to New York, a man "drank all of his duty-free liquor," tried to "choke the woman next to him," and was "screaming the plane was going to crash," fellow passenger Andy Ellwood tells the New York Post. With two hours left to go on the flight, his fed-up neighbors gagged him and taped him to his seat just to shut him up. Oh, and then took a picture of their work.

3. You'll steal people's food and demand some "fucking music"

Perhaps Bela Chopra is a delight on the ground, but she is allegedly a nightmare in the air. Chopra was already visibly inebriated while boarding her June 2012 flight, but continued to sip from her own bottle of gin. When the food was served, she allegedly stole whatever she pleased from other people's trays and loudly demanded the "fucking music" be played from the plane's speakers. And when crew members tried to calm Chopra down, she reportedly told them to "fuck off." She was arrested at Heathrow and, after sobering up, apologized, blaming her behavior on her fear of flying.

4. You'll mistake the aisle for a bathroom

"Legendary" French actor Gerard Depardieu was on an August 2011 flight from Paris to Dublin when, while the plane was preparing to take off, he complained to the crew that he had to pee ("Je vex pisser!"). He was told to hold it until after takeoff. When a 20-minute delay was announced, the allegedly drunk actor began arguing again with the crew until he said he couldn't wait any longer and "just stood up and urinated on the floor," said one passenger. The flight was forced to return to the gate and was delayed for another two hours while the crew cleaned up the acclaimed actor's spillage. Horrifically, Depardieu is not the first in-flight urinator.

5. You'll perform an unsolicited erotic dance

In 2011, a London-bound flight was forced to return to Moscow after a drunken female passenger took it upon herself to perform a provocative one-woman show. Just 15 minutes into the morning flight, the visibly inebriated 39-year-old Russian was reportedly getting all up in other passengers' business — removing their glasses, dancing erotically on their laps, and generally "inconveniencing" them. The woman was taken to a hospital upon the flight's return, although you probably don't need a medical degree to diagnose her ailment.

6. You'll try to leave the plane before it has landed

South African MP Dirk Feldman didn't impress anyone with his "drunken escapades" aboard a flight to India last year. Despite being a part of an official parliamentary delegation, Feldman helped himself to a few drinks too many and decided he'd had quite enough of the long flight from Johannesburg to Mumbai. So he tried to get off of it while still in the air. Feldman began fumbling with the emergency door, thankfully failing to open it. The politician was detained in India and then sent back to South Africa.

7. You'll make it rain

Leon Quarless started drinking before boarding his flight, which was probably his first mistake. While en route to England from Majorca, Spain, on June 24, 2012, the 45-year-old started handing out wads of cash to his fellow passengers. He pulled 50-euro notes and British pounds sterling from a bag full of cash on his lap, but when passengers refused his generous, if dubious, gifts, he became livid. When the plane landed in England, Quarless was arrested, and while in custody he made the bold choice of destroying his cell phone and eating his SIM card. Always a good move.