June 2010 Vol 6, Flight Safety
German football fan gets suspended sentence for air rage in S Africa
Johannesburg. The German football fan who lost his temper shoving and swearing at South Africa Airways cabin crew after plane delays forced him to miss Wednesday night's FIFA World Cup semifinal in Durban on Saturday received a suspended sentence for a minor offence, Xinhua News Agency informed.
Johannesburg. The German football fan who lost his temper shoving and swearing at South Africa Airways cabin crew after plane delays forced him to miss Wednesday night's FIFA World Cup semifinal in Durban on Saturday received a suspended sentence for a minor offence, Xinhua News Agency informed.
Jorg Mardos, 27, was arrested on Wednesday after his flight returned to Port Elizabeth in South Africa. He was originally charged with assaulting a cabin crew member.
But in the Port Elizabeth Magistrate's Court on Saturday he was sentenced to three months in prison, suspended for a year, for a "lesser serious" contravention of South Africa's Civil Aviation Act.
According to the South African Press Association, Magistrate Peter Cambell told Mardos that he was not going to impose a fine because "you have lost so much already".
Cambell said that Mardos has been unable to recover about 4, 607 U.S. dollars in tickets after his flight to Durban had to turn back resulting in him missing the World Cup semifinal between Spain and Germany.
SAPA reported that the court found out that Mardos pushed and shoved two cabin crew attendants and shouted at them.
"What you did was unacceptable, you should have not acted in that way," Cambell told him.
On Friday the Airports Company of South Africa apologized to semifinal ticket-holding passengers who had been affected and offered some compensation.
Please login to post your comments.
