Bank VP Pees on Elderly Passenger

According to The Washington Post, a Wells Fargo executive from the bank's operations in India allegedly urinated on an elderly woman during a flight from New York to New Delhi. He was arrested and his employment terminated after the incident.

The Post reports the man, Shankar Mishra, was taken into custody Saturday, in Bangalore by New Delhi officers, according to Suman Nalwa, a police spokeswoman. A New Delhi judge ordered the man be remanded for 14 days as he is considered a flight risk. (We're wondering if another plane will let him board after the incident!)

The incident occurred in November on an Air India flight from John F. Kennedy International Airport to Indira Gandhi International Airport. According to the police report, Mishra, who was “completely inebriated” urinated on female passenger: “He unzipped his pants and urinated on me and kept standing there until the person sitting next to me tapped him and told him to go back to his seat,” said the woman, who was seated in business class behind Mishra.

Unnamed for privacy reasons, the self-described senior citizen, said that her clothes, shoes and bag were “soaked in urine.” She was given a pair of "airline pajamas." to change into. When she refused to returned to her soiled seat the crew insisted no other seat was available but eventually allowed her to use the jump seat (a small, fold-down seat meant for short-term use by crew). The woman allegedly told the crew at the time she wanted Mishra arrested. Instead, against her wishes, they brought the urinator to her.

“In the face of his pleading and begging in front of me, and my own shock and trauma,” she reported, “I found it difficult to insist on his arrest or to press charges against him.”

The Post reports that Mishra’s attorneys, Ishanee Sharma and Akshat Bajpai, said in a statement that he “does not remember the details of the incident.” They added that Mishra was “very apologetic and respectful,” once he'd been "woken." According to the statement Mishra had paid for the woman's belongings to be laundered, but in December the woman returned the money. Air India refunded the woman’s ticket and held multiple meetings with her. On December 26, the woman’s family requested that the airline file a police report, which it did.

In a statement to the Indian paper Hindu, Wells Fargo called the allegations “deeply disturbing.” Mishra's lawyer said he had been terminated following his arrest. The month-long delay between the flight and Air India’s filing of a police report raised concerns over how the airline handled the incident.

The Directorate General of Civil Aviation, which regulates the industry said the airline’s conduct “appears to be unprofessional.” It has request that Air India explain “why enforcement action should not be taken against them for dereliction of their regulatory obligations.”

“Air India acknowledges that it could have handled these matters better, both in the air and on the ground,” Air India chief executive Campbell Wilson said in a statement, adding that the crew has been removed from the airline’s roster. Wilson noted that an internal investigation was ongoing.

Apparently this is not an isolated incident as the following stories of men urinating on passengers indicates.