Flight returns, 2 women facing charges

TORONTO (AP) — Two Canadian women are facing charges after authorities say they drank their duty free alcohol in the flight's bathroom, triggered the fire alarm with a cigarette and got into a fight each other, forcing a Sunwing flight bound for Cuba to return to Toronto under a military escort.

Peel Region police said Thursday that Lilia Ratmanski, 25, and Milana Muzikante, 26, have been charged with smoking on board an aircraft and endangering its safety.

The airline says the flight had left Toronto late Wednesday afternoon at 4:30 when it was disrupted by "two unruly female passengers." Sunwing vice-president Janine Chapman says the passengers had consumed a "significant quantity of their duty-free alcohol purchase in the lavatory."

She says they made a "threat against the aircraft."