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WJXT News / YoutubeThe HMS Queen Elizabeth arrives in Florida. September 5, 2018.- The largest British aircraft carrier, HMS Queen Elizabeth, arrived in the United States this week for training.
- During their leave ashore in Florida, six sailors were arrested and detained for drunk and disorderly behavior, according to local reports.
- One of them was stunned by a Taser when he refused to put his hands in the back, reported the local TV channel WJAX-TV.
- The warship is in the United States to perform F-35 tests with British and American pilots.
Six sailors from HMS Queen Elizabeth, the largest and most powerful aircraft carrier in Britain, were reportedly arrested and taken to custody in Jacksonville, Florida, for drunken and messy behavior this week.
The sailors, who were on the ground, were arrested after locals found them fighting and urinating in public, the BBC reported.
The incident took place late Wednesday night in the morning of Thursday morning, according to local television channel WJAX Jacksonville.
Most of them were arrested on charges of drunkenness and disorder, reported the Florida Times-Union.
Three of them were also charged with arrest resistance. One of them pushed and pulled an officer, one was actively fighting and refused to stop, and another refused to put his hands behind his back and was finally stunned by a taser, according to WJAX-TV.
The group was detained all night before being released aboard the warship on Thursday morning, The Sun newspaper reported.
HMS Queen Elizabeth arrived in the United States this week after leaving the UK on August 18th. He is en route for F-35 trials at Patuxent Air Force Base, Maryland, with US and British pilots.
WJXT News / YoutubeThe HMS Queen Elizabeth passes by the Florida coast, where it stops to refuel before sailing north to Maryland. September 5, 2018.The British Navy acknowledged the incident but declined to provide further comments.
A spokesman for the Royal Navy told Business Insider in a statement:
"We can confirm that a number of Navy members are helping US police in their investigations – it would be inappropriate to comment further for the moment.
"The Naval Service attaches great importance to maintaining the highest possible standards of behavior of its personnel at all times."
Sgt Larry Smith of the Jacksonville Beach Police Service also confirmed that all the arrests were alcohol-related, but that they were "good people making bad decisions".
Smith said to the sun:
"Our officers went down to the ship to talk to their commanders, and while they were still in town on Thursday night, the sailors were out of trouble.
"It was a case of good people making bad decisions, they were drunk and they were fighting each other.
"It happens. They seem to disengage and remove their teeth, but once they have taken their teeth, they kiss and are again the best friends.
The HMS Queen Elizabeth is the largest and most powerful aircraft carrier in British history. It took eight years to build and cost the Royal Navy 3.5 billion pounds ($ 4.6 billion).
It is home to 900 people – 700 members of the Royal Navy and 200 employees of the industry.
The deployment in the United States is important because it will mark the first combat aircraft to land on a British aircraft carrier in eight years, since the decommissioning of HMS Ark Royal.
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