United Russia lawmaker Andrei Isayev was kicked off a flight from St. Petersburg to Moscow for supposedly intoxicated shenanigans, and his party is demanding answers, news reports said Wednesday.
Isayev brandished his deputy's ID while he and his aide yelled at flight attendants before the Tuesday night takeoff, until police removed the two from the plane, TJournal reported, citing Ilya Perekopsky, the deputy chief of social network VKontakte who was on the plane and witnessed the incident.
"Tell your voters how you and your wasted aide made the whole plane wait while police removed you from the St.Pete-Moscow flight," Perekopsky tweeted. The takeoff was delayed by an hour and a half, he said.
Isayev's assistant was fined 100 rubles ($3) by transport police for being intoxicated, Interfax reported.
"We were calmly waiting for takeoff until Isayev and his aide showed up," Perekopsky said. "Judging by their behavior, I would guess they were on some kind of drugs."
United Russia said it would investigate the situation and respond.
"The incident with Andrei Isayev is extremely unpleasant for us," the secretary of the party's general council, Sergei Neverov, said. "Now we are going to ask him to give explanations."
"This incident shall not pass without serious reaction from the party," he added.
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