Drunk Texas Student Disrupts Transatlantic Flight After Girlfriend Dumps Him Via Text
Jeffrey Tanner Libby boarded the British Airways flight with bad news.
The 21-year-old Texas man recently had been dumped via text by his girlfriend, according to his defense attorney Michael Wolkind, reports the Daily Mirror.
An hour into the flight, Libby “became highly intoxicated from drinking Bacardi rum, which he had brought on to the plane himself, and was then aggressive and abusive towards members of the cabin crew and other passengers on board,” according to Metropolitan Police.
The statement from police continued: “As they tried to calm Libby down, he then proceeded to assault two of the passengers and one member of the cabin crew, scratching and striking them and even biting one of the passenger’s fingers.”
The pilot of the Dec. 17 transatlantic London-to-Dallas flight, who “authorised Libby’s restraint,” according to police, made the decision to return to London’s Heathrow airport and have Libby be met and arrested by police.
Along the way the pilot emptied 20 tons of fuel into the Atlantic Ocean to make for a safer landing so soon after takeoff, reports the Dallas Morning News.
The Fort Worth resident pleaded guilty on Dec. 24 to one count of being drunk aboard an aircraft, one count of using threatening, abusive or insulting words toward the cabin crew, and three counts of common assault, police said.
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Last Wednesday he was sentenced to six months in jail for his actions, PEOPLE confirms with the Metropolitan Police.
“Libby’s behaviour was extremely reckless, and he put the safety of the passengers and crew on board at risk,” Detective Inspector Matt East said in a statement issued by police. “Not only that, but his actions caused considerable disruption and inconvenience for all those on board, and the airline had to rearrange flights for the 191 other passengers.”
Libby’s defense attorney had requested a suspended sentence that Judge Robin Johnson rejected, the Daily Mirror reports.
“Whether you were drunk when you boarded the plane or you became drunk doesn’t matter,” the judge said, according to the newspaper. “You assaulted a woman for no reason at all.”
TCU360, an official, student-run website run by the journalism department in the Bob Schieffer College of Communication at Texas Christian University, reports that Libby is a news and media studies major at the university.
