An Air India crew put a whole new spin on in-flight entertainment recently.  Not for the passengers on this plane the usual movies and music programs – no, they got treated to a brawl between pilots and cabin crew.  Crew members threw punches and hurled abuse – in full view of 106 passengers – after an air stewardess accused one of the co-pilots on flight IC-844 of sexually harassing her.  At one point, the cockpit of the Airbus A320 was left unmanned.

It is still not clear precisely how or when the fight started, but it is believed to have stemmed from an angry exchange during the pre-flight briefing before the plane left Sharjah airport in the UAE.  Police in Delhi said that a 24-year-old stewardess accused one of the flight deck crew of trying to molest her and of pushing her out of the cockpit when she resisted.  Officers said they had registered a case against two pilots on suspicion of committing "assault or use of criminal force against a woman with intent to outrage her modesty". The pilots are reported to have made a counter-claim, saying that the harassment allegation was an attempt to divert attention from accusations of misconduct against a male flight attendant.

Air India said in a statement it had ordered an inquiry into what it described as a reported “scuffle”, adding that two pilots and two crew members had been suspended.

So lets scrub Air India from my list of airlines which I might use sometime – I prefer my in-flight entertainment to be more tame than that.