PATRICK GOWER and ANNE BESTON find that air rage can have serious consequences for both the flight and all those on board.
Air Rage - abuse and physical aggression at 30,000 feet in a confined environment.
Serious cases of air rage can put a flight in jeopardy, and have led to the death of at least one international passenger in the past year.
During a flight there is no easy way for passengers to remove themselves from such an incident and there is no way to get assistance. Air New Zealand pilot Stephen Chilcott, who helped to restrain Australian passenger Erickson Morales when he went berserk, said he "could see it coming."
"We all know what causes it," he said last night.
"People get on an aeroplane, have a couple of drinks too many and that's basically all there was."
A spokesman for the Civil Aviation Authority, Martyn Gosling, said air rage was a "phenomenon we certainly never used to hear about."
He said it might be brought on by a ban on smoking, getting stressed by the lengths of the long flights, getting too drunk and being crammed in with lots of people.
A survey by the International Air Transport Association shows a five-fold increase in air rage in recent years.
In 1994, there were 1132 incidents. In 1997, there were 5416.
Jonathon Burton, a 19-year-old American, died of a heart attack after he suddenly went berserk on a flight from Las Vegas to Salt Lake City in August.
He fought with a flight attendant before punching and kicking those around him.
He ran down the aisle of the Boeing 737 screaming, "I can fly this plane," and began kicking at the door of the cockpit.
Some of the other 136 passengers on board tried to restrain him, but he eventually broke through and began grabbing at the pilots.
Passengers described the scene as pandemonium as crew wrestled with the teenager.
Burton was finally overcome and once the plane landed, police arrived to find him dead. He had suffered a heart attack.
An autopsy revealed that he had been effectively strangled but no one will face charges over his death.
His family are considering a lawsuit against the airline.
But incidents of air rage have not always been so far from home.
Last year, an Australian passenger on an Air New Zealand flight from Sydney allegedly assaulted a flight attendant and tried to open a door as the plane approached Wellington Airport.
The captain was so concerned that he aborted his initial approach and the aircraft was delayed.
Police charged a 25-year-old woman once the plane landed.
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