[Courtesy of Daisy Fuentes' Instagram]
South Korean airport police will launch a criminal investigation next week of a 34-year-old man who went on a drunken rampage aboard a flight from Vietnam to South Korea.
The man identified as Im Beom-joon (phonetic) will appear in Incheon's airport police station on Monday on charges of inflicting injuries and violating a law on aviation safety. He is the son of a businessman who runs Doojung (www.doojung.com), a manufacturer and exporters of cosmetic products.
The man is accused of beating and spitting at cabin attendants and passengers Tuesday aboard a Korean Air plane flying to Incheon. The incident gained international attention after American rock star Richard Marx and his wife uploaded critical posts and pictures on their Facebook and Instagram.
Marx, who was on his way back to his home in Los Angeles via Incheon, was praised for playing a role in controlling the drunken passenger. The 53-year-old rock ballad legend criticized how Korean Air's crew members were ill-prepared for such an incident.
A video uploaded on Facebook showed the man kicking, spitting and hurling insults when crew members tied him down to the seat with ropes and cable ties.
Disruptive air passengers face tough punishment or a maximum prison term of five years under a revised aviation law prompted by the infamous "nut rage" case involving Cho Hyun-ah, the daughter of Korean Air's founding family, in late 2014.
The fine for drunken passengers who injure other passengers doubled to 10 million won (8,299 US dollars) in an effort to curb disruptive in-flight cases which have been on the rise with some passengers acting under the influence of alcohol.
Cho made international headlines after she ordered a flight attendant off a taxiing plane. She said she had become enraged after a flight attendant served her some nuts in a bag instead of a dish, and insisted the plane return to the gate so he could be removed from the flight.
Her actions invited overseas ridicule and domestic embarrassment. Many South Koreans saw her behavior as emblematic of a generation of spoilt and arrogant offspring of big firm owners.
Following Cho's case, Korean-American singer Bobby Kim was fined for sexually harassing a cabin crew member under the influence of alcohol.
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