A New York traveler has been sentenced to six months in federal prison for a drunken rampage aboard a 12-hour flight from Tel Aviv to JFK sparked by flight attendants cutting off his booze supply.
Shachar Bivas, 44, of Long Island, was sentenced Thursday for his mid-flight free-for-all on May 31 last year, during which he punched and pushed a Delta flight attendant and ruined his work uniform, according to court filings.
He was also fined $9,500 and must surrender to authorities by Aug. 2.
Bivas had requested a vodka drink on Flight 235 and was served once before crew members noticed he was visibly drunk and cut him off, sending him into a blind rage, according to court docs.
The Long Island man then got up and approached a second flight attendant about a drink, stating that his father had recently died and he was upset about it, prosecutors said.
He was offered a coffee and asked to return to his seat, only to stand up again and ask the same flight attendant for a drink and a cigarette.
When the crew member told him he could not smoke or be served any more alcohol on the plane, Bivas “became angry,” and punched a refrigerator next to the flight attendant’s head, federal prosecutors said.
As the plane moved over Europe, Bivas stood up again to bother the same flight attendant, who had been talking to a nearby passenger. He shoved the passenger aside and demanded a drink, the feds said.
Bivas “forcibly grabbed, pushed and punched ” the flight attendant, bruising their arm and ripping their uniform, as seen in photos.
Another attendant stepped in and restrained Bivas, keeping him in the back of the plane for the rest of the trip, according to prosecutors.
After the assault, the flight attendant asked the captains to make an emergency landing, but they declined. One of the plane’s captains, Michael Glenister, was pulled out from the front of the plane to handle the chaos.
“I would equate this situation to driving a car in an unfamiliar area at night with kids screaming in the backseat, versus doing the same with someone else in the passenger seat taking care of the kids and reading street signs of you,” Glenister wrote in a letter to the judge.
Glenister detailed how half of the crew had been resting at the time of the assault, leaving only five flight attendants to handle the situation while monitoring the other 275 travelers on board.
Bivas was indicted in August and pleaded guilty in December to interference with a flight attendant, which carries a zero-to-six-month prison term. He must surrender to authorities by Aug. 2.