Drunk passenger sparks hijacking scare on Virgin Australia flight

Facebook/Virgin Australia

Drunk passenger sparks hijacking scare on Virgin Australia flight
(Image credit: Facebook/Virgin Australia)

An intoxicated passenger inadvertently sparked a hijacking scare this morning when he reportedly tried entering the cockpit of a Virgin Australia flight headed from Brisbane to Bali. The attempted break-in prompted the flight's pilots to make a "hijack call," but they revoked the alert when they learned the perpetrator was just a drunken flyer.

The crew got the situation under control by handcuffing the alleged perpetrator, identified as a 28-year-old Australian national, and placing him in the back of the plane for the rest of the flight. He was arrested upon landing, and no passengers or crew were harmed on the ride. The pilots' alert still set off a scare, however, as Indonesian officials closed the airport in Bali and security reportedly rushed to the tarmac.

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Jordan Valinsky is the lead writer for Speed Reads. Before joining The Week, he wrote for New York Observer's tech blog, Betabeat, and tracked the intersection between popular culture and the internet for The Daily Dot. He graduated with a degree in online journalism from Ohio University.