Twenty-five passengers were thrown off a flight at Gatwick Airport after allegedly becoming “drunk and abusive”.
A group of 24 men and one 14-year-old boy, all said to be from Ireland, were reportedly causing trouble on a Costa Rica-bound plane on Monday morning as it waited for take-off.
Police were called after the captain refused to depart until they were ejected from the Thomson Airways flight.
Sally Ferguson, 50, who was on the plane, said the rowdy holidaymakers were “taken off the plane because they [were] drunk and abusive”, the Daily Mirror reported.
“The captain said he has never seen anything like it in 20 years,” she added.
Fellow passengers were forced to wait as the flight took off more than three hours after its scheduled departure time, although part of the delay was blamed on earlier technical issues.
A spokeswoman for Sussex Police said: "At 11.35am on Monday police were called to an outbound Thomson flight due to leave Gatwick North Terminal for Costa Rica after the captain refused to fly with a group of 25 male passengers, all adults except for one 14-year old boy, some of whom had been disorderly on the aircraft.
"Officers escorted them from the aircraft to landside where they dispersed. There was no violence as the officers escorted tham away, and no evidence of criminal offences on the aircraft or in the airport."
A spokeswoman for Thomson Airways apologised for the "inconvenience" to other passengers after the flight was held up "due to an operational issue and a customer incident on board".
She added: "We operate a zero tolerance policy in relation to any disruptive behaviour and several customers were asked to leave the aircraft. We worked as quickly as possible to ensure the other customers could get away on their holiday."
The incident comes a week after a rowdy stag party forced an easyJet flight from London to Slovakia to make an unscheduled landing.
Six of the group were arrested over their behaviour and left facing fines of 25,000 euros (£19,700).
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