Narrative:

While in level flight the purser requested to enter the flight deck; after entering she explained that she and another flight attendant were struck by a female passenger having marital/domestic fight with the husband. Due to herself being hit physically as well as a second flight attendant (flight attendant) it took four flight attendants to subdue and restrain a now flex cuffed female passenger. The [relief pilot] was on break in the bunk. Ultimately a divert was initiated after inquiry with flight desk and the [duty manager] after the [relief pilot] was woke and on the flight deck the cockpit was locked down.although; national police were requested to meet the aircraft in sbbr an emergency was not declared; and ATC was very difficult to communicate the decision to divert was made.similarly; we needed to dump fuel to get down to landing weight for sbbr; we did jettison fuel without ATC engaged.more efficient communications would have resolved a very high work load; although multiple requests and discussions were had with dispatch the support and shared decision making was minimal; as a flight crew engaging our resources; we needed better support so we could focus on items like referring to flight manuals for guidance on jettisoning fuel; instead we had to call on the satellite phone multiple times to dispatch; we were having difficulty ascertaining what to expect after landing from [company] personnel at the station; we never did get an affirmative response from [company] that the 'national police' per our manuals would be standing by; or that station personnel would be available let alone a mechanic to do an overweight inspection. I had very clearly requested these items over the satcom from dispatch but; a crew shift change occurred and no follow-up by [company] ops personnel came. This served to greatly increase the workload on the flight crew and in point of time available to land it limited the number of tasks that could be prioritized in the time available to prepare a divert in brazilian airspace.apparently; the dispatcher change took place and at one point the new dispatcher indicated it was known we were diverting to sbgr; when in fact we were descending to sbbr; we had told the previous dispatcher we were going to sbbr because; he had told us sbeg did not have [the right] service equipment; we had also; updated the FMS to reflect our turn to sbbr. The lack of anything meaningful from communications to [company] made our jobs significantly more task saturated. Due to the entire country of brasil needing to communicate through sbgr ops and no way to call to sbbr ops effectively; we were truly in the blind as to what to plan for in sbbr; this impacted a decision to jettison fuel and could be immediately remedied by adding an ops frequency at our regular and alternate airports.the brazilian radio quality and reliability added to our workload and at one point we lost the controller communications and had to scrabble a frequency that had been used previously at about the time we passed sbbr northbound before diverting into sbbr; this occurred minutes into our descent; this too impacted time to communicate; in the future I would request the company work through the channels available to make known our needs.we did ask for some items to be addressed by [company] personnel but; they did not get back to us in a supportive manner.at the outset of the event the captain and I both would have had better situational awareness had we known more thoroughly what was taking place in the cabin; I would suggest that when a physical altercation takes place; another non-abused crew member contact the flight deck; our purser had been assaulted and had experienced a disturbing event; she and the crew did an excellent job establishing a cabin that had order.

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Original NASA ASRS Text

Title: Air carrier First Officer reported a Flight Attendant was injured during a passenger altercation in the cabin. The crew decided to divert but had difficulty coordinating with ATC and Dispatch during the diversion.

Narrative: While in level flight the purser requested to enter the flight deck; after entering she explained that she and another flight attendant were struck by a female passenger having marital/domestic fight with the husband. Due to herself being hit physically as well as a second Flight Attendant (FA) it took four flight attendants to subdue and restrain a now flex cuffed female passenger. The [relief pilot] was on break in the bunk. Ultimately a divert was initiated after inquiry with flight desk and the [Duty Manager] after the [relief pilot] was woke and on the flight deck the cockpit was locked down.Although; national police were requested to meet the aircraft in SBBR an emergency was not declared; and ATC was very difficult to communicate the decision to divert was made.Similarly; we needed to dump fuel to get down to landing weight for SBBR; we did jettison fuel without ATC engaged.More efficient communications would have resolved a very high work load; although multiple requests and discussions were had with dispatch the support and shared decision making was minimal; as a flight crew engaging our resources; we needed better support so we could focus on items like referring to flight manuals for guidance on jettisoning fuel; instead we had to call on the satellite phone multiple times to dispatch; we were having difficulty ascertaining what to expect after landing from [company] personnel at the station; we never did get an affirmative response from [company] that the 'National Police' per our manuals would be standing by; or that station personnel would be available let alone a mechanic to do an overweight inspection. I had very clearly requested these items over the satcom from dispatch but; a crew shift change occurred and no follow-up by [company] ops personnel came. This served to greatly increase the workload on the flight crew and in point of time available to land it limited the number of tasks that could be prioritized in the time available to prepare a divert in Brazilian airspace.Apparently; the dispatcher change took place and at one point the new dispatcher indicated it was known we were diverting to SBGR; when in fact we were descending to SBBR; we had told the previous dispatcher we were going to SBBR because; he had told us SBEG did not have [the right] service equipment; we had also; updated the FMS to reflect our turn to SBBR. The lack of anything meaningful from communications to [company] made our jobs significantly more task saturated. Due to the entire country of Brasil needing to communicate through SBGR ops and no way to call to SBBR ops effectively; we were truly in the blind as to what to plan for in SBBR; this impacted a decision to jettison fuel and could be immediately remedied by adding an ops frequency at our regular and alternate airports.The Brazilian radio quality and reliability added to our workload and at one point we lost the controller communications and had to scrabble a frequency that had been used previously at about the time we passed SBBR northbound before diverting into SBBR; this occurred minutes into our descent; this too impacted time to communicate; in the future I would request the company work through the channels available to make known our needs.We did ask for some items to be addressed by [company] personnel but; they did not get back to us in a supportive manner.At the outset of the event the captain and I both would have had better situational awareness had we known more thoroughly what was taking place in the cabin; I would suggest that when a physical altercation takes place; another non-abused crew member contact the flight deck; our purser had been assaulted and had experienced a disturbing event; she and the crew did an excellent job establishing a cabin that had order.

Data retrieved from NASA's ASRS site and automatically converted to unabbreviated mixed upper/lowercase text. This report is for informational purposes with no guarantee of accuracy. See NASA's ASRS site for official report.