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Unruly passengers disturb flights

By Darice Williams, TRIBUNE-REVIEW
Wednesday, January 7, 2004
Airline crews in Pittsburgh and at other airports occasionally have to calm disruptive passengers, dodge fists on flights or restrain unruly travelers.

Common problems include passengers who get drunk, smoke or attack fellow fliers.

"We are just policemen now; it is the environment," said Teddy Xidas, president of Local 40 of the Association of Flight Attendants, which represents US Airways employees.

Authorities said Dawn L. Sunday, 37, of Castle Shannon, assaulted an air marshal Dec. 30 on a Northwest Airlines flight from Pittsburgh International Airport to Minneapolis-St. Paul. She was denied temporary release to a halfway house Monday when she appeared before a federal magistrate in Minneapolis.

She is charged with interfering with a flight crew and assaulting a federal officer, and faces up to 20 years in prison if convicted.

The number of passenger-misconduct reports has dropped since Sept. 11, said Linda Connell, director of the NASA Aviation Safety Reporting System in Moffett Field, Calif. Airline reporting is voluntary. The group recently compiled 50 reports of misconduct by passengers, not all of whom were charged.

"It seems like passengers got a lot more aware they should not be doing certain things," Connell said.

Passengers get stressed out and frustrated sometimes because of the new security measures at airports since the terrorist attacks, Xidas said.

By the time they board the plane, a short delay or a change in a seating assignment can provoke rage.

"When people become tactless and verbal, it relieves their tension," Xidas said.

The incident shows how air marshals sometimes have to intervene in sticky situations, said Dave Adams, a spokesman for the Federal Air Marshal Service.

"The flight attendant would be first line of defense," he said. "A federal air marshal would intercede after the passenger becomes uncontrollable to the point the flight attendant needs assistance."

Flight crews are trained to defuse air rage.

"Flight attendants are trained to use a calm voice, do not touch them, ask them if they want a glass of water and not become defensive," Xidas said.

If that doesn't work, passengers might be handcuffed until the plane lands. Airline employees use nylon restraints to temporarily restrain combative passengers.

Bad behavior

  • A woman on a flight from Miami last March threw ice cubes at a clergyman seated in front of her. The woman made rude remarks toward other passengers, then kicked and screamed after a flight attendant gave her an in-flight disturbance form to read. Two passengers helped restrain her. She responded by cursing, singing prayers and threatening to blow up the plane. She was arrested.

  • A plane had to land in Boston last March after a man consumed drugs and alcohol and started getting paranoid. He yanked the flight attendant's necktie and hit the passenger in front of him.

  • In Ohio last June, a man ordered a drink when he got on the plane because he was stressed out about an earlier flight. He became disruptive and refused to take his seat. An airline employee and another passenger restrained him.

    SOURCE: NASA AVIATION SAFETY REPORTING SYSTEM'S PASSENGER MISCONDUCT DATABASE, BASED ON REPORTS FROM AIRLINE EMPLOYEES

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