For the first time in all my years of flying, a passenger on my flight got busted for smoking…after setting off the smoke alarm in the lavatory on my United Airlines flight!
Passenger Smokes In Lavatory On My United Flight And Sets Off Alarm
I was flying from Burbank (BUR) to Denver (DEN) on United Airlines onboard an Airbus A320, a quiet morning flight that was not booked full. Flight attendants performed a beverage service and then dimmed the lights.
Suddenly, about an hour into the flight, a beeping sound could be heard. Here’s a video demonstrating what happens when a lavatory alarm goes off on an A320:
At first, I wasn’t clear what was going on.
But a flight attendant came on the PA, making the following announcement:
“Ladies and gentlemen, as was clearly stated in the safety video, lavatories are equipped with smoke detectors. If you smoke in the lavatory, the alarm will go off. This is a final warning that smoking or vaping of any kind is not permitted onboard this or any United flight.”
A couple flight attendants who were in first class proceeded to the back of the plane and they all huddled, probably deciding on what to do.
I saw the guy coming out of the lavatory, but I didn’t hear the conversation – maybe he denied vaping or smoking?
As we neared Denver, I wondered whether police would meet the aircraft on arrival and we’d be instructed to remain seated while the young man was hauled off the plane.
That did not occur.
The flight landed as normal and while I did not wait to see if he was held onboard, there were not police or even United representatives that met the flight on the jetbridge.
Generally when we play stupid games, we win stupid prizes, though it seems our smoking friend got off with a warning here. But maybe not…it is my understanding that flight attendants have to write up a report when something like this occurs. United has a fairly aggressive security team and it may be that this fellow is banned from future travel on United?
I went back to “the” lavatory later in the flight and it did not appear that the smoke detector itself had been tampered with. While I suppose I can realize why someone might think they can smoke when they see an ashtray in the lavatory, the signage is very clear on both sides of the lavatory door:
CONCLUSION
Gosh, I didn’t think anyone would be as stupid as to smoke or vape in the lavatory with an alarm directly over your head, but this was a flight from LaLa land. I’ve seen many people steal a quick vape onboard flights, but always from their seats…those odors are very faint and the “smoke” limited. Word of warning: going into the lavatory to smoke or vape will not end well.
I’m actually surprised it doesn’t happen more. Smokers aren’t exactly intelligent, especially when it comes to their awareness of others smelling their smoke.
This happened on my SFO SIN flight. Dude was hauled off the plane immediately in handcuffs by Singaporean police. They do not mess around lol.
As you showed lavatories have ashtrays, for good reasons because better to dispose of a cigarette there than in the toilet.
I sometimes wonder whether idiots see these ashtrays and somehow imagine it’s ok to smoke (despite all endless contradicting signs).
I wouldn’t imagine a cigarette down the toilet is a danger. But, more than one smoker has disposed of one in the trash.
I remember taking Air China and China Eastern before the pandemic… the pilots smoked. Nuts.
Me too:
https://liveandletsfly.com/smoking-on-china-eastern-airlines/
Matthew, I am generally impressed with your posts. But I find the typos to be distracting. Respectfully, your comments would be, I believe, more convincing if you didn’t display the same disregard for grammar that I have come to expect from, well, the other side.
I appreciate that you are motivated to post before others do, but don’t you think your credibility would be enhanced if you asked someone on your staff to review before you go live?
Not trying to be disrespectful (or stupid), but I don’t see the errors beyond “hte” instead of “the” at two points (which I fixed) and “learned” instead of “neared.” Is that what you meant?
I didn’t see a need to point out specifics; I just wanted to suggest there were (to me) errors that could easily have been caught by using a tool like, for example, Grammarly.
“onboard an Airbus A320” — “onboard” should be two words: “on board” (onboard is an adjective, not a preposition).
“there were not police” — should be “there were no police.”
“as stupid as to” — should be “as stupid as to” is arguably acceptable, but the more standard phrasing is “stupid enough to.”
“LaLa land” — inconsistent capitalization; it should be either “La La Land” (two words, as it’s a proper nickname for Los Angeles) or “Lalaland” — but the standard is “La La Land.”
“Word of warning” — should be “A word of warning.”
“those odors are very faint and the ‘smoke’ limited” — the second clause is a fragment; it should be “the ‘smoke’ is limited” for parallelism and grammatical completeness.
May I direct you to this post:
Hmm, so you were using the Safari extension instead of the desktop app? I don’t know if it would be any better, but it might be worth a try. Otherwise, if you use the extension, you could keep it disabled–except when you are composing a post.
Oh, and I”m OK to kill this thread, if you wish. 🙂
I may try the desktop app again. Problem with the desktop app is that it does not work in WordPress when I’m using Safari.
Hmm, that’s the first I’ve heard that Grammarly won’t work in WordPress when using the desktop app. Life was much simpler when I was typing on an IBM Selectric. Brilliant machine. 🙂
With all due respect, I find your surname hilariously ironic considering your insistence on an exact and specific phrasing.
It’s a worth mentioning that language is constantly evolving, and what is “proper” changes from year-to-year. As a fast rule, if you understood what the speaker was saying, the language did its job perfectly well. It may not be proper according to some academics in ivory towers, but the rest of us truck on regardless. As a final note, I’m not sure if the last book you read was from the 1900s, but missing out grammatical articles has been pretty standard in written English for a long time, not even to mention spoken English.
I appreciate the spelling errors – it tells me that a real human wrote it!
Matthew puts typos in on purpose. It gives a “certain type” much pleasure to find them.
Sadly, I’m not that clever.
I had a crazy woman who sat next to me on an ATA flight to HNL do that. She also woke me up to tell me that I was sleeping with my mouth open. She also grabbed a FA’s butt. Non rev fun!
For those seeking an answer to the question, “Why do so many people still smoke?”, perhaps it’s worth suggesting they watch THE INSIDER (1999) carefully several times…
Answer: Nicotine Pouches, you can use them in the lavatory., or anywhere on the plane.
Or lozenges, or gum, or people could just grow a pair and give it up.
Meanwhile, here’s another airline incident from America…↓
https://x.com/nypost/status/2027035821883183259
“If you must have a smoke before we land today, we have 2 smoking lounges: one on the right wing and one just across the aisle on the left wing. Go ahead and try to light and smoke it, but the rest of us are going to enjoy 2 feature films this evening: Gone with the Wind and Bye Bye Birdie.”
LOL Good one.
The new Mile High Club:
November 2025: “JetBlue Flight Returns to Boston After Passenger Smokes Marijuana”
https://aviationa2z.com/index.php/2025/11/14/jetblue-flight-returns-to-boston-as-passenger-smokes-marijuana/
August 2025: “Plane Passenger Allegedly Caught Smoking Marijuana in Bathroom Causes Major Delay”
https://people.com/plane-passenger-allegedly-smokes-weed-marijuana-in-bathroom-causing-delay-11796949
This is one of the reasons America is in the state that it is in today.
There are no repercussions for antisocial and/or criminal behaviour.
I’ll wager this selfish idiot was MAGA and/or had a MAGA red hat.
As a friendly reminder, Deltalina says:
“Smoking, is not allowed.”
Back about 30 years ago or so, my cousin somewhat successfully pulled off smoking in the lav: She covered the detectors and blew the smoke into the toilet. While the alarm did NOT go off, the stench was detected by the FA’s who didn’t say a word but just quietly observed her and noted her seat number and the police waiting on ground to cite her. I didn’t find out the disposition of her case but she’s apparently walking free nowadays.