What should have been a routine eight-hour flight from London to Lahore in February 2023 became one flight attendant’s worst nightmare—and ended with a successful businessman behind bars.
Salman Iftikhar seemed like any other first-class passenger when he boarded the Virgin Atlantic flight.
The 37-year-old had built a recruitment company called Staffing Match and could afford the luxury of premium seating.
But somewhere between takeoff and the first meal service, everything went horribly wrong.
After a few glasses of champagne at the in-flight bar, Iftikhar began grabbing ice with his bare hands—a simple hygiene violation that flight attendants needed to address.
But when they politely intervened, his response was anything but reasonable.
“Don’t tell me what to do, you racist f**king b*tch. I know where you’re from in Cardiff,” he shouted at one crew member, his words cutting through the cabin’s quiet hum.
What followed was eight hours of terror for the flight crew. Iftikhar refused to return to his seat, accused staff of racism, and began filming them while unleashing a stream of abuse.
But his threats soon crossed into territory that left even experienced crew members shaken.
“You will be dragged by your hair from your hotel room, gang-raped, and set on fire,” he told one female attendant. “The floor of your hotel will be blown up and disappear.”
The chilling specificity didn’t stop there—he even knew their hotel name and room numbers.
For one flight attendant, a 37-year veteran who had worked through post-9/11 fears and flown over war zones, this was the breaking point.
“This incident has broken me,” she later said in court.
“Never in my entire career have I not known what to do. I loved my job. But he took that away from me.” She would need 14 months away from work to recover.
When male crew member Tommy Merchant tried to intervene, Iftikhar’s aggression turned physical.
“Do you know who I am? Let’s go, right now,” he challenged, ready to fight at 30,000 feet.
Even his own wife couldn’t calm him down—he pushed her aside when she tried to help.
The most frustrating part? When the plane landed in Pakistan, Iftikhar simply walked away. No arrest, no immediate consequences.
It would take over a year before British police finally knocked on the door of his £950,000 home in Buckinghamshire.
In court, Iftikhar’s lawyer tried an unusual defense, claiming his client suffered from “amnesia blood loss” during the incident—a claim that raised eyebrows rather than sympathy.
Iftikhar pleaded guilty to racially aggravated harassment and threats to kill, though he was cleared of assault charges against the male crew member.
The judge handed down a 15-month prison sentence, praising the Virgin Atlantic crew for maintaining their professionalism under impossible circumstances.
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