I don’t know what’s going on with the flying public these days. Last month, it’s a woman lighting matches to cover body odor. Last Sunday, it’s a 28-year-old woman getting drunk and then breaking damn close to every rule in the air on a United flight from Boston to San Francisco. According to the article in today’s USAToday, she:
- Made mid-air cell phone calls
- Joked about a hijacking — “‘I’m calling 911 because the plane is being hijacked”
- Locked herself in the restroom with her dog
- Tried to make her way to the front door while saying “‘I’m getting off the aircraft”
- Yelled, cursed and spit on the flight attendants after being restrained
I’ve been flying between Chicago and San Francisco for almost a year straight, and have done the Boston to San Francisco route recently. It is a long flight, and if you haven’t planned ahead (or scored the rare upgrade), it’s a long time between meals. Something to keep in mind when the drink cart comes ’round.
I remember a similar incident on a flight from Cleveland to Chicago. One passenger was drunk and, on the approach to O’Hare, tried to leave early through the back door. The flight attendent and some passengers got the guy back into his seat. After landing, the Chicago police came on board, looked around and asked “Is anyone going to press charges?”. “I will,” said the flight attendant. Without a word, the cop grabbed the guy out of his seat, slammed him face first onto the floor of the plane, ‘cuffed him, and then dragged him down the stairs. And this was in the more gentle-and-sensitive pre-Sept 11th days. Keep that in mind then next time you’re ordering that double.
1 comment on “What Was She Thinking?”
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Federal Aviation Regulation requires that the pilot-in-command deny anybody obviously drunk from flying on the airplane. That said, we all know it’s easy to disguise our condition prior to boarding. Now if this person was being served alcohol on the plane, then the flight attendants (subject to same regulation as a flight crew member) bear a certain amount of responsibility for the incident.
In other news, you’re probably aware of the incident at General Mitchell Airport in Milwaukee last Sunday. It seem apparent that the plane was below the rejected takeoff speed when the engine quit, but runway conditions led the plane to skid off the end of the runway. Had it been going faster, the pilot would have had to take off (on one engine), and who knows what could have happened.