London - A pilot who told his passengers that none of them could leave the plane until the person who had had a cigarette in the toilet came forward was arrested by Italian police, the British airline Go said yesterday.
The airline said it had protested at the detention of the British pilot, Captain Brian Bliss (57), after the crew of Sunday's flight from London's Stansted airport to Milan found an unidentified passenger had been smoking in the plane's forward toilet.
A company spokesman said: "Someone had had a cigarette and tried to conceal the fact by blocking the smoke detector with bits of a cigarette packet. This irresponsible act posed a risk to all 148 passengers and crew. Unfortunately, no one owned up and eventually police came on board and detained him (the captain) for detaining the passengers against their will."