[Image: Facebook/Ben Crook]
A man who got booted off a plane in Turkey for kicking up a fuss over booze tragically fell to his death just hours later, an inquest has heard.
Ben Crook, 32, had flown into Antalya on 24 September, hoping to celebrate his birthday with some sunshine and good times. Instead, he ended up arguing with flight staff mid-air because, apparently, the in-flight drinks cart wasn’t moving fast enough for his liking. Things got so heated that he was separated from his partner and her kids before they even touched down.
According to Newport Coroner’s Court, Crook’s grand finale on the flight included smashing both his and his partner’s phones, because if you’re going to go out in flames, you might as well make sure nobody can text you afterwards. Without a phone, he had no way of finding out where his family were staying.
A few hours later, he was dead, after a fall “from a height.” Coroner Caroline Saunders ruled there was “no evidence of third party involvement or that he jumped”, the BBC reported, and called it what it was: a tragic accident.
The post-mortem in Newport confirmed the cause of death as blunt trauma – fractured skull, fractured pelvis. No mystery there: the man fell, and fell hard.
The court heard that Mr Crook, a window fitter from Abertridwr, Caerphilly, was a nervous flyer. So, naturally, he pre-gamed the flight with alcohol. Not content, he stocked up again at duty free, clearly planning to fly with wings of gin and not Red Bull.
His partner Jess Jenkins told the court he “became a little difficult” mid-flight and started “shouting at a male steward demanding he obtain more alcohol.” Which is possibly the politest way to describe someone going full throttle at 30,000 feet.
He was eventually escorted off the plane after breaking both phones. Once on the ground and without a phone to his name, Crook tried to reconnect by borrowing a stranger’s mobile to message Jenkins and his dad. Tragically, those messages weren’t seen until after he died.
That couple later spoke with his family, saying he looked “pretty shaky and possibly hungover” before they saw him wander off near the harbour. Not exactly the picture of someone ready to hit the beach.
Ms Saunders told the court, “It was then unclear where Ben went or why”, but by 18:30, he had taken a fatal fall on Cumhuriyet Street. An anonymous witness described it as “an accident.”
According to what witnesses told the court, it looked like a “freak accident”, he was smoking, possibly dizzy, maybe drunk. Either way, he went down.
Ben Crook died in the early hours of 25 September after being rushed to a hospital in Antalya.
His sister, Amy Crook, told the court that Ben had struggled with his mental health since he was a teen, and had been drinking and using drugs more heavily in the last six months. But she made one thing clear: the family didn’t think for a second that he would’ve taken his own life, saying he wouldn’t have left behind “his two children whom he adored.”
Toxicology showed alcohol, cocaine, cocaethylene, and ketamine in his system, but the coroner noted that the ketamine was likely given by medics in a last-ditch effort to revive him.
[Source: BBC]
