Liquored-Up Lance Loses It on Plane?

Lance Armstrong, say on-flight sources, gets a little too drunk on the plane

Poor Lance Armstrong can't catch a break—well, aside from actually breaking his collarbone during a race in Spain, we mean.

After crashing during the run-up to his stunningly ambitious eighth Tour de France, Lance was on a flight from Madrid to Atlanta. And apparently the sometimes-womanizer took his self-pity out on the other passengers. Perhaps he knew how bad surgery was going to be, what with that steel plate and those 12 screws he'd just had implanted in his collarbone, which was busted in four spots?

Regardless, an A.T. reader on the flight with L.A. contacted us and described how unpleasant the 36-year-old cancer-surviving cyclist was:

"He was such an asshole," ranted our onboard babe. "He was so wasted on painkillers, and he drank a lot. It was just obnoxious."

So how much did he chug exactly? "Enough to be cut off," the witness told us. And that was in first class, where the booze flows freely until passengers usually cut themselves off, honeys.

After bitchin' for a while, Lancey, who had his arm in a sling, finally went to sleep, much to the flight attendants' and other passengers' joy.

We get the guy is hurtin', but come on, man, no need to be obnoxious about it. Let's just hope he was easing the physical pain of the injury and not of Kate Hudson and Owen Wilson's supposed reconciliation.

After all, I pretty much adore Lance, and not just because he's got such great legs (which I've seen super up close). Surely he was having a bad day, nothing more?

Reps for Lance, so far, have not responded for comment.