A drunk passenger who caused a hijack scare on Friday when he tried to break into the cockpit of a Virgin Australia plane has been arrested at Bali airport, transport officials said.
After acting aggressively, the 28-year-old passenger was seized and handcuffed by crew members on the Boeing 737, BBC News reported.
The flight, flying from Australia to the Indonesian holiday island of Bali, was boarded by Indonesian troops on landing after reports came in that it had been hijacked.
When Matt Christopher banged on the door of the cockpit and attempted to get inside an hour before it was due to land, the Virgin Atlantic Airlines officials mistook his actions as a hijacking situation, Reuters reported.
"There was a drunk passenger, intoxicated and aggressively behaved. He was trying to enter the cockpit, banging the door but he did not enter the cockpit," Heru Sudjatmiko, airport manager for Virgin Australia in Bali, told Indonesia's Metro TV.
Following the banging, the pilot immediately sent a distress signal to airport authorities, BBC's Karishma Vaswani in Indonesia said. The "miscommunication" was blamed on fear and confusion of the crew members.
"This is no hijacking, this is a miscommunication," Heru Sudjatmiko, a Virgin Australia official said.
Palani Mohan, a passenger on another flight that was about to take off from Bali, told AFP that the pilot of his plane announced the airport was in lockdown, according to BBC News.
"The captain of my plane made an announcement saying we were delayed indefinitely because a hijack was going on in Bali airport, about 150 meters away from us."
"I saw at least five vehicles including military-style trucks, filled with men in uniform, rushing towards the plane," he said.
"Then the Virgin plane taxied away, followed by the convoy of security forces."
The 137 passengers and six crew members were unharmed and were taken off the aircraft at Denpasar, in Bali, an Indonesian air force spokesman said.
