September 28, 2018

A loaded gun, drugs and overly aggressive passenger behavior are all common reasons for getting yourself arrested at airports. But this year, there have been some wilder passengers, leading to arrests in cases that have left police baffled.

It’s one thing to miss your flight. But yesterday morning (Thursday), when one man missed his flight in Dublin, he managed to get onto the tarmac at the airport and actually tried to chase his plane down after he missed his Ryanair flight to Amsterdam. At the gate, he broke through the door, ran onto the tarmac and attempted to flag down the plane as it taxied away. He was held back by staff and police took him to a nearby station for questioning.

And then, just two weeks ago in Florida, a 22 year-old flight student from Trinidad and Tobago jumped over a barbed-wire security fence at the Melbourne International Airport and was able to reach the cockpit of an empty passenger jet before two maintenance men were able to tackle him. His roommate later said of the student…”He just wanted to go home.”

In what’s perhaps the funniest case of the year, there’s the story of a man named Ryan Carney Williams, also known as “Ryan Hawaii.” He was traveling from Iceland to England on January 10th. Ryan wanted to avoid the excess luggage fee at Iceland Keflavik International Airport, and so he put on his extra eight pairs of pants and 10 shirts. But he was denied a boarding pass at the British Airways desk. Ryan tweeted a video showing himself asking why he couldn’t board. The airline didn’t tweet — British Airways staffers called the police. And he was arrested. What could the charge possibly be? Dressing for…excess?