A two-year-old child has been left in a coma after an airline passenger reportedly violently threw him to the floor of an airport lounge in Russia.
The suspect, under the influence of drugs, picked up a boy at Moscow’s Sheremetyevo Airport and then slammed him to the ground with full force, the state news agency TASS reported.
The toddler was hospitalized and, according to unconfirmed media reports, the boy is in a coma due to severe head injuries.
The incident occurred shortly before midnight in the departure lounge yesterday.
Fortunately, bystanders were able to prevent the man from further attacking the child.
The man has been arrested and is being investigated for attempted murder.
Sheremetyevo International Airport is the busiest in Russia, handling more than 40 million passengers and over 300,000 aircraft per year.
It comes after the airport previously made the headlines in 2018 when an air passenger started a fist fight after he asked to get off the plane for a smoke as his plane was ready for take off.
The 38-year-old man, who was allegedly drunk, demanded to be let off the plane for a cigarette as it taxied towards the runway at the Russian capital city of Moscow’s Sheremetyevo International Airport.
Other passengers, including a man in a red jumper sitting behind him, tried to reason with the man and told him he would be able to smoke when the plane reached the city of Krasnoyarsk in central Russia’s Krasnoyarsk Krai region.
But the man became increasingly aggressive, insulting the man in the red jumper sitting behind him. The pair ended up exchanging blows as cabin crew tried to keep them apart.
An eyewitness with a smartphone filmed the fight and posted the footage on video sharing platforms where it is proving popular with viewers.
The man, whose name has not been released, carried on swearing and insulting other passengers, asking them if they had ‘read the script’.
The pilot decided to turn back to the airport so the man could be taken off the plane and arrested by airport police.
The passenger was later charged with hooliganism and faces a hefty fine for his actions. The incident led to the flight being delayed by two hours.
