An Australian caused a dramatic scene at Bali’s Ngurah Rai Airport last night, after a “freak out” led to his flight being cancelled and a 90-minute standoff ensued as he shouted from a 25-meter-high ledge.
Identified from his passport as Gregory Butler, the 46-year-old had been on an AirAsia flight to Kuala Lumpur on Monday evening, when he started banging on the cockpit door as the plane was taxiing, saying that someone was trying to kill him.
“For safety reasons the pilot decided to return to the apron and the flight was cancelled,” said Ngurah Rai airport communications and legal chief, Arie Ahsanurrohin.
But Butler didn’t stop there.
Back in the airport, he went onto a narrow ledge of the second floor overlooking the busy departures area, shouting and screaming.
An Austrian man tried to negotiate with him and calm Butler down by going onto the ledge himself, but it ultimately took a group of officers wrestling the man down, to put an end to the 90-minute scene.
“I said to him, all the people here have problems. I have more problems than you,” Austran national Erol Buyuk recalled telling the man.
Onlookers cheered as airport security and police pulled him of the ledge, which reportedly had a 25-meter drop.
When asked what he was doing up there, Butler said he wasn’t trying to kill himself, but that he was trying to bring attention to corrupt government officials.
“I didn’t want to jump, I was standing on the edge. Would you jump?” Butler said to reporters, as quoted by News Corp Australia.
“I wanted to bring attention to certain situation regarding government officials, that’s why I thought I could do it,” Butler said, at one point apparently suggesting he meant Australian officials.
There was no explanation offered as to why the man was not immediately detained upon returning to the boarding gate. Coconuts Bali has reached out to Ngurah Rai Airport for comment and will update this story with more details when we get them.
After the ordeal, antidepressant medications were found on Butler. The Australian was eventually led off, given sedatives, and taken to Sanglah Hospital in Denpasar in an ambulance for psychiatric and medical testing.
If you need information on depression or want to talk about other mental health issues, you can call a suicide hotline run by the Indonesia’s Ministry of Health, which can be reached at 500-454. You can also get in touch with Indonesian NGO Jangan Bunuh Diri (email: janganbunuhdiri@yahoo.com; phone: 021 9696 9293).
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