Smoking passenger sets fire to plane toilet with cigarette

A passenger set fire to the El AL flight out of Ben Gurion Airport, Tel Aviv. Photo / Aman Upadhyay, Gus Ruballo; Unsplash

Cabin crew were called to extinguish a fire on a plane out of Tel Aviv on Friday after a passenger decided the 11 hour flight to Bangkok was too long to wait for a cigarette.

The passenger who is reportedly an Israeli national went for a cheeky cigarette in the plane toilet of a El Al flight and unwittingly set the WC ablaze.

Remember the part about not smoking in the plane restrooms in pre-flight safety announcements? They had this traveller in mind when they wrote it.

Ash from a discarded cigarette butt caught light in the bin.

El Al told the Times of Israel that the attendants and captain responded immediately with fire extinguishers.

The rapid response was vital, they said, for "fear of a fire breaking out in the cabin."

"The flight continued as scheduled and landed safely at Bangkok Airport," the airline said in a statement. El Al said they would seek legal action against the passenger on return to Israel.

There was minimal damage to the plane and it was able to continue onto its destination. The airline said it decided not to involve Thai police in the matter.

In 2017 a British man was given a 10 year jail sentence for smoking in a plane toilet on a Monarch Air plane to Sharm el-Sheikh in Egypt. Setting fire to the plane toilet, the man was arrested by Egyptian police and pleaded guilty to "reckless arson" in the UK courts.