This is...
... the kind of in depth investigative reporting that I come to the register for, top marks! (Comment possibly influenced by lunchtime beers)
Plane grounded so cops can cuff semi-legless passenger
A Thomson flight from Tunisia to Edinburgh was diverted to Gatwick airport on Wednesday night after a female passenger allegedly threatened cabin crew with a false leg. As cops escorted her from the aircraft, other passengers bade her farewell with a rendition of The Hokey Cokey, STV reports. A Sussex Police spokesman …
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Friday 1st August 2014 14:28 GMT knarf
Legless twice on the same flight impressive
I was once on a plane to Turkey a few years ago when a two legged women got drunk and tried to open the door at 35,000ft and pished herself (must have been the pressure). Turned out she was banned from flying for doing the exact same thing the previous year. I thought I'd never she her again as she's be spending sometime in a nice Turkish prison. Turned out she was on the return flight after a great holiday and was again pissed.
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Friday 8th August 2014 00:18 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: Legless twice on the same flight impressive
> a two legged women got drunk and tried to open the door at 35,000ft
Good luck with that. :)
The doors are plug type, meaning they need to come in before they can swing out. Now, if the pressure inside the cabin is about 700 mb (at altitude) and cruising at the 240 mb isobar, the differential is 460 mb, times the surface of the door (say 3.0 m² to be fair, though it's actually bigger than that). By my calculations (so probably wrong) that works out to about 138 kN.
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Friday 1st August 2014 15:06 GMT Anonymous Coward
Unemployed and going on holiday overseas?
Maybe I need to come back to the UK and sign on.
Don't get me wrong, I'm all for the social safety net and paying unemployed people enough to get by while they look for a new job or get retrained. But I would not include money for flying to take overseas holidays in that.
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Friday 8th August 2014 00:48 GMT Anonymous Coward
> Bit weird to divert to Gatwick though
You do whatever the AOM (Airline Operations Manual) says, which in the case of disruptive pax presenting an actual threat of physical harm or compromising the safety of the flight (there are four levels of disruptive pax according to industry guidelines) may include a diversion, but I don't recall the details from memory in my particular case, to be honest.
Some airlines systematically sue seriously disruptive pax (unless PR issues or sometimes even common sense dictate otherwise, such as bona-fide mentally challenged persons) for the diversion costs, usually in the order of a few tens of Ks. Even if they can't pay, it inconveniences them to no end.
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Friday 1st August 2014 15:41 GMT Don Jefe
Why?
I can think of dozens of reasons to make an emergency landing, but a one legged woman isn't on that list. If people really felt they were in danger just take her fucking leg. It's not like she's going to pull a runner when you land.
Fuck it, doesn't really matter to me, and is irrelevant to my tale. When I was doing my Undergrad studies I shared a house with two other guys and whatever couch barnacle was there at the time. One of my roommates had a prosthetic leg, and had also developed a crippling addiction to cocaine. After he had exhausted his own funds and charity from friends he had to get creative to find drug money. He actually found a dealer who let him use his prosthetic as collateral for fronting him some cocaine. He would use his disability check to get his leg back and buy some coke with cash. That lasted about two weeks, then he would hock the leg again.
If it wasn't so sad it would have been hilarious. Honestly, it was still hilarious, he was beyond help so might as well enjoy the show. I always respected that drug dealer for his sense of creative business tactics. I never wanted to meet him, but I did want to ask him if he had given any thought to monetizing the leg if my friend ever defaulted. I would really like to know what he had come up with.
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Friday 1st August 2014 15:59 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: Why?
I can think of dozens of reasons to make an emergency landing, but a one legged woman isn't on that list. If people really felt they were in danger just take her fucking leg. It's not like she's going to pull a runner when you land.
According to the more detailed report I read in a newspaper this morning, her first bit of bad behaviour was to strike the small child in the seat next to her. The use of her prosthetic limb to threaten the cabin crew came on top of that. Not surprised they diverted the plane in order to get shot of her after all that.
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Friday 1st August 2014 22:13 GMT Jamie Jones
Re: Why?
Even so, the Dons point is that they could have constrained her without much issue.
Obviously, I wasn't there etc. but it does sometimes feel such diversions are done to make a point, in the hope it will deter others in future (which isn't actually a bad idea, but it's still theatre)
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Friday 1st August 2014 16:01 GMT Arachnoid
Im sure shes not the first
Getting arrested for being nearly legless on a plane.As for some of the long term unemployed having funds for holidays its also not uncommon to hear the funds seem to also facilitate good Sky Sports reception displayed on a large screen TV and game stations for all their children.
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Saturday 2nd August 2014 01:09 GMT gregthecanuck
Just couldn't resist...
Courtesy of AC/DC's "Shake a Leg" lyrics, with some tweaks:
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Keepin' outta trouble with eyes in the back of my face
Kickin' ass in economy class and they tell me I'm a damn disgrace
They tell me what they think but they stink and I really don't care
Got a mind of my own move on get outta my hair
Shake a leg shake your head
Shake a leg wake the dead
Shake a leg get stuck in
Shake a leg shake a leg
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Monday 4th August 2014 13:16 GMT Kubla Cant
Re: Thompson ...
Who he? The airline and holiday company are called "Thomson", after media mogul Roy Thomson.
You're right about the poor service, though. Last Christmas we flew with Thomson on a week's family holday to Austria. When we reached the departure gate, Thomson Airlines announce that my wife's 19-year-old, UK resident, son would not be allowed on the flight because his US passport had only a month of validity, and the Austrians might refuse him entry. So he had to take his case off the plane and go home. Merry Christmas from Thomson!
On arrival at Innsbruck we spoke to the border police, who expressed astonishment at our story, and said "We decide who is allowed in, not the airline". So we had to arrange another flight, which wasn't easy when communicating by mobile phone from Austria. I spoke to Thomson and suggested they might help us make the arrangements, and they basically replied "We were following procedures, so you can piss off".
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Friday 8th August 2014 01:03 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: Thompson ...
> On arrival at Innsbruck we spoke to the border police, who expressed astonishment at our story, and said "We decide who is allowed in, not the airline".
They do decide, but it's the airline that gets fined and has to repatriate the pax at their cost (which will they then attempt to recover from the pax) if he gets refused entry, and if Austrian immigration rules say that a passport with minimum six month validity is required for Septics, the airline could have been faced with this inconvenience.
In practice, your cousin should have educated himself better on the rules for the countries he intended to visit (the six month rule is pretty common). It would have also helped if the UK was part of Schengen, as in that case he would have been alright (in practise, if not in theory) once accepted into Britain.
I'm afraid this is nothing to do with poor service, but rather poor planning on your cousin's part.
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Biting the hand that feeds IT
