Flights Of Fancy

Dangerous events on air planes and at airports are thankfully very rare  .....

The Plane Oxygen Mask Seemed
Rougher Than Expected .....

.... but when they happen they can be serious ....

Unlucky For Some
 
Lu Chao a Chinese man who was intending to fly on his first ever flight from Anqing Tianzushan airport in Eastern China in January 2019, decided that he needed some luck, so he threw some coins in to the air planes engines as he was boarding. 

Luckily someone noticed some of the coins on the ground, and the flight was cancelled, with the engine having to be fully overhauled. Lu Chao was arrested and was fined £13,000 as compensation for the airlines costs and loss of income. Not so lucky for him, but lucky for the rest of the passengers and flight crew.

Unexpected Turbulence
 
In February 2018 an Transavia Airlines flight HV6902 between Dubai and Amsterdam had to make a forced landing because of unexpected wind turbulence .... not outside, but inside. One of the passengers was allegedly continuously farting, and despite being asked by two Dutch passengers to cease and desist his unsavoury habits, he refused and continued loudly passing wind.

The ensuing fracas with the cabin crew was so violent, that the captain issued a warning to the two men, because of their noisy and aggressive behaviour "including threats". They ignored the captain and continued to provoke the cabin crew and the captain was forced to divert to Vienna, where the police were waiting. They boarded the aircraft and four Dutch passport holders, two men and two women, were removed from the plane in Vienna .... the alleged farter was not removed (they alleged to be suffering from severe wind and couldn't stop them self). All four were banned by the airline and had to make other arrangements to get from Vienna to Amsterdam as none of them were arrested because they had not broken any Austrian laws.

But in a twist, the two women removed who had been returning from a vacation in Dubai claimed that they were not associated with the two men, and that they had been falsely evicted from the aircraft. They also alleged that it was racial profiling because all four removed passengers were of Moroccan extraction .... 25 year old Nora Lachhab a law student in Rotterdam said to the press that it was;

"A shocking, frightening and humiliating experience. We have hired a lawyer. The strange thing is that we also had to leave the aircraft. While we did not know these guys at all. We happened to be in the same row, but did not do anything to justify the bizarre behaviour of the Transavia crew.

Do they think that all Moroccans cause problems? That's why we won't leave it at that. We had nothing to do with the whole disturbance. We also distance ourselves from it. The blunt attitude of the Transavia flight attendants was wrong from the start of the flight. They sought the confrontation themselves." 

However as the Dutch are notoriously plain spoken (famously Dutch International football teams have often been at war with each other and the coaches) ... you would not expect air cabin crew to not be like that, so the sisters should not be surprised. As you might expect the airline has defended its actions

"Our crew must ensure a safe flight. If passengers pose a risk, they immediately intervene. Our people are trained for that. They know very well where the boundaries are. Transavia therefore stands squarely behind the cabin crew and the pilots." .... they confirmed that in their view, the two women were also guilty of misbehaviour and verbal abuse, and they filed a police report about the incident in the Netherlands. " .... according to our crew, there was a good reason to get all four of them off board".

Late Flight

Unemployed Patrick Kehoe of Oulart, County Wexford Ireland was not a man to let being light for a flight stop him. So when he was late for a Ryan Air flight from Dublin Airport, after drinking at the bar, he allegedly drunkenly broke the magnetic security doors and attempted to chase after the plane as it taxied down the airport runway to get into take off position. 

Patrick Kehoe - Aeroplane Chaser

Needless to say this valiant effort was in vain, and he was swiftly detained by the police .... appearing in court later charged with criminal damage, he was bailed for a later appearance. His sense of injustice at all this apparently still burnt brightly, and so he responded to the bail proceedings by mooning (pulling his trousers down and exposing his buttocks) towards the judge. 

At his actual trial, he was more restrained at his next court appearance and immediately pleaded guilty to two counts of assaulting the Airport Police Service (APS) woman and a male aircraft ground handler who intervened as he ran after his flight which was getting ready to take off. The court was told he attacked a ground handler by “pushing him and tripping him back onto the ground” and then when an Airport Police Service woman went to stop him, he kicked her causing he to suffer a swollen knee.

Despite a previous conviction for assault in 2013, for which he received 12 months probation, he somehow only got (and completed) a three-month restorative justice services programme supervised by the Probation Service. Lucky boy .... not every country would have reacted this leniently .... assaulting a US police officer (drunk or otherwise) would have been a prison term.