An Alaska flight diverted to Chicago after a passenger responded poorly to a flight attendant request to extinguish his cigarette.
Perhaps the passenger did not get the memo that domestic flights in the USA have been non-smoking since 1990. Maybe he was just having a bad day. But one “belligerent” passenger decided to light up midway through an Alaska Airlines flight from San Francisco to Philadelphia yesterday.
When flight attendants asked him to extinguish his cigarette, he begrudgingly complied. But after extinguishing his cigarette, he began to pace the aisle. It is not clear if he was speaking while this occurred or (as I suspect) if he consumed any alcohol onboard.
Alaska opted to divert “due to a disruptive passenger onboard and out of an abundance of caution.” Police met the aircraft in Chicago and the passenger was escorted off.
After refueling, the plane took off again for Philadelphia, arriving about 90 minutes late.
Was It Necessary?
Alaska is not commenting further on this story (I reached out), but I wonder whether the diversion was really necessary. Without directly second-guessing the crew, what made him belligerent? I’ve seen the power of addiction. If the man was just pacing up and down the aisles because he was craving a cigarette, was it really necessary to divert the aircraft and throw him off?
Perhaps the police should still have met him in Philadelphia for smoking onboard, but that’s different than making an unplanned stop.
CONCLUSION
I generally report on diversion stories to discourage onboard alcohol consumption. While alcohol is not clearly a factor here, I suspect it takes a certain amount of inebriation to ignore all the no-smoking signs.
I think there’s probably additional factors here.
Flight attendants should be allowed to put horse tranquilizer in people’s drinks.
Here sir, have some whiskey to sooth your nerves.
The problem is that the airline industry wishes to have it both ways. On the one hand, they want peaceful, compliant, and non-violent passengers. On the other hand, they are very greedy, as the sale of alcohol on flights, is a large revenue producer for the airlines. The fact of the matter is that in some people, alcohol loosens people’s inhibitions, and causes them to act belligerently, and violently. It is about time, that airlines prohibited the sale and consumption of alcohol on board all flights. Incidentally, regarding the non-smoking policy of the airlines today, I’d like to remind everybody, that the airlines did not authorize the non-smoking policy, on their own volition. In fact, the airlines fought any proposal to end smoking on commercial flights. Some airlines even would distribute cigarettes to passengers. It should be noted that for many years, flight attendants, as well as passengers, were complaining about the health effects of second hand cigarette smoke. However, to paraphrase what Clark Gable stated at the end of the movie “Gone With the Wind”, the airline executives “Quite frankly, didn’t give a damn”. It wasn’t until the late Senator Frank Lautenberg of New Jersey, sponsored federal legislation, which ended smoking on commercial airlines in the USA, once and for all.
Regardless this smoker broke the law, whether he had a bad day or not, he has no self discipline. I would still press charges against him even after throwing him off half way and make him pay for the rerouting. Lit cigarettes could have cause a fire and would have killed everyone on board. Alaska did well.
“Lit cigarettes could have cause a fire and would have killed everyone on board.”
Do you know that fire needs oxygen and in an airplane, oxygen is limited. Enough for passenger to breath, but not to lit fire and maintain fire.
Do you know that in private jets, people freely smoke onboard?
Do you know that in some chinese airlines, pilot do smoke onboard?
What are you? A dog is smarter than you….
Right….. Say that to the 23 souls who lost their lives on air Canada flight 797.
I think dogs are smarter than you too.
So… You still live in 20th century? I live in 2019.
Oh well… Dogs can’t read….
Retards just don’t get it. Doesn’t matter, I pity your mum, the 9 months of pain to bring a retard to this world
There was indeed an additional factor. The guy was a dick.
If you are so addicted to nicotine that a cross country flight is too long, then drive instead, in the privacy and freedom of your own car.