Passengers on board a Virgin Australia flight from Melbourne to Perth on Thursday night have described a “flight from hell” after they were diverted to Adelaide when a woman allegedly began threatening to kill people.

A witness told the ABC it was a little over an hour into the journey of VA 697 when the passenger began wailing and shouting: “Get me off this f–––ing plane, don’t f–––ing come near me, I can’t breathe”.

When airline stewards tried to calm the woman, she allegedly threatened to kill people if they did not stop the plane.

The flight was diverted to Adelaide. Upon landing, five Australian Federal Police officers boarded the aircraft and escorted the woman off.

Her baggage was then removed and inspected before the plane was refuelled and continued to Perth.

The flight, which had been due to leave Melbourne about 8.30pm had already been delayed by an hour due to poor weather. By the time it landed in Perth at 3.15am, it was four hours late.

“[It was a] flight from hell,” a passenger told the ABC. “A four-and-a-half-hour flight looks like being a seven- to eight-hour flight.”

The ABC was told many, including children, were frightened by the woman’s behaviour, while others were incredibly frustrated.

It comes after a Sri Lankan man was sentenced to 12 years in prison in Australia for threatening to detonate a bomb on a flight from Melbourne bound for Malaysia in 2017.

That flight was forced to return to Melbourne. When police tactical response officers boarded the aircraft, they found that what Manodh Marks had said was a bomb was actually a portable speaker.

The court heard he was in a drug-induced psychosis at the time.

-ABC