An "enraged" anti-smoker endangered a Jumbo 747 and the hundreds on board as he "spat with venom" and behaved "like a man possessed" after he was placed behind a couple who had lit up, a court heard yesterday.
Businessman Mr John Bagwell (42), originally from Straffan, Co Kildare but living in Mayfair, central London, denies endangering an aircraft and the lives of those on board. He also denies an alternative charge of affray.
Isleworth Crown Court in Middlesex was told that he first called one fellow traveller a "savage and an animal" and branded a hostess who came to help as "pathetic".
Red-faced and trembling, he then stormed onto the flight deck to berate the captain about the way he had been treated, prosecuting counsel said.
Mr Bagwell, a confirmed non-smoker and described as "very medically sensitive" to cigarette fumes, was one of 261 passengers on board flight SA220 on December 13th last year. It carried 16 cabin staff and a flight crew of five.
Handing jurors plans of the aircraft, the barrister explained that unlike most airlines South African Airways permits smoking on board.
But it was confined to the three front rows in the economy class. Unfortunately for Mr Bagwell he was allocated a seat right behind them.
Some 16 minutes after take-off the No Smoking signs were turned off. "Various people lit up, not surprising I suppose if they had taken the trouble to book into the smoking section," counsel explained.
The defendant, he said, instantly "flared up" and screamed at them to stub their cigarettes out.
Eventually he calmed down enough to be allocated a seat which was more to his liking. But he then lost his temper once more when the captain came down to see if everything was all right.
When the 10-hour South African Airways flight from Cape Town touched down at Heathrow he was pointed out to police and arrested. He insisted he had done nothing wrong and had simply asserted his rights.
Mr Bagwell of Berkeley Street, Mayfair, denies one charge of "recklessly or negligently acting in a manner likely to endanger an aircraft or persons within" on December 13th last year.
He also pleads not guilty to a lesser, alternative count of affray.
The trial continues.