Literally, hell of a flight for MAS stewardess.
- Passenger went on 10-hour drinking binge
- Called stewardess “Malaysian pig”
- Assaulted stewardess before restrained
A court in London yesterday heard the case of a drunk female passenger who verbally abused and assaulted a Malaysian Airlines stewardess in a flight from Kuala Lumpur to Heathrow.
According to British newspaper The Sun, Maxine Williams had been drinking for ten hours prior to the incident.
Teoh Ming Lee, 36, said: “As the flight took off everything was smooth until after ten hours into the flight I came back from my break, she became unruly and very abusive, and started swearing.”
Williams staggered into the first-class gallery looking for alcohol. She broke an armrest as she fell on another passenger when she went back to her seat. She so terrified the children that they cried, with a family moving to another deck to get away from her.
The 57-year-old hospital receptionist reportedly called Teoh, “a Malaysian pig” and “idiot”, and shouted that she hated Malaysia.
Teoh said Williams could not stand up properly and kept leaning on the side. Angered by the crew refusing to serve her more wine, she kicked Teoh’s meal cart, splashing water on to another passenger.
Her foul-mouth rant and behaving in a manner that was “so out of control” led the flight captain to declare a security alert at 30,000ft, instructing her to be restrained.
Williams’ hands were tied behind her back with plastic loops. After she kicked Teoh legs, her legs were bound with gaffer tape.
Williams kept up the abuse even when her arms and legs were bound before falling asleep 45 minutes to landing.
Police were ready when the plane touched down at Heathrow and Williams was still drunk despite her nap.
Williams was travelling alone on her way back from a holiday in Langkawi.
She denied the charges and said the Malaysia Airlines crew exaggerated her behaviour to justify restraining her. She claimed that she did nothing wrong and asserted that the staff tied her up for no reason.
She alleged she wasn’t drunk despite having three glasses of wine and two glasses of champagne on board.
“I know I wasn’t drunk, I was at the police station when the police told me the story. I didn’t know what they were talking about,” she said.
However, evidence by witnesses, including cabin crew, corroborated Teoh’s story.
Teoh was visibly emotional in court as she recounted how she felt “degraded” by the woman’s tirade of obscene abuse on the flight.
Williams was convicted of beating Teoh, using threatening and abusive words or behaviour, racially aggravated harassment and entering an aircraft when drunk.
She will be sentenced on a date to be fixed.