A co-passenger of Shankar Mishra, the 34-year-old who allegedly urinated on a woman co-passenger in her 70s, explained the events leading to the incident amid widespread outrage on social media. The incident took place in the business class of the Air India flight from New York to Delhi on November 26 last year. US-based doctor Sugata Bhattacharjee told NDTV that the former Wells Fargo executive told him on the fateful day that he was drinking as he had a long day and had not slept well. "He told me he drank to get a good night's sleep," said Bhattacharjee.
In an exclusive conversation with India Today TV, Bhattacharjee painted a picture of lapses and a lack of accountability on the part of the Air India crew.
While the doctor said he had not personally witnessed the peeing incident, he was present for what followed. He blamed the airline staff for not helping the victim, a 70-year-old woman, promptly and making her sit in the soiled seat for several hours.
“Her whole body was reeking of urine. She had to use the same seat, they put multiple blankets and after some time, when a crew seat was available, they gave it to her,” he said.
Bhattacharjee said when he approached the senior stewardess and asked her to give the traumatised passenger a different seat, she told him that she can't take such a decision on her own. Bhattacharjee said it took the captain two hours to allot her a fresh seat. This, when there were four first class seats lying vacant and the victim was travelling in business class.
Tata Group Chairman N Chandrasekaran admitted on Sunday that Air India's response to the incident of a drunk passenger urinating on a woman on one of its international flights last year should have been ''much swifter''.
In a statement, which came days after the aviation regulator DGCA pulled up the Tata Group-owned full-service carrier, Chandrasekaran also said that ''we fell short of addressing this situation the way we should have.'' In a shocking incident, an inebriated man urinated on a female co-passenger, a senior citizen in her seventies, in the business class of Air India New York-New Delhi flight on November 26 last year.
The accused Shankar Mishra was arrested by the Delhi Police from Bengaluru on Saturday.
''The incident on Air India flight AI102 on November 26, 2022, has been a matter of personal anguish to me and my colleagues at Air India. Air India's response should have been much swifter. We fell short of addressing this situation the way it should have been, Chandrasekaran said in the statement on Sunday.
DGCA has said Air India's conduct in handling the incident was ''unprofessional''. It has issued show cause notices to the airline, its director of in-flight services and the crew that operated the flight.
The incident came to light reportedly after the woman wrote a letter to Chandrasekaran recalling her harrowing experience on the flight.
Air India CEO Campbell Wilson on Saturday apologised for the incident and said four cabin crew and a pilot have been de-rostered and the airline is reviewing its ''policy on service of alcohol in flight''.
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