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Want to waste a thousand bucks? Just unbuckle and stand up at the wrong time.

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  • Want to waste a thousand bucks? Just unbuckle and stand up at the wrong time.

    So I have been away a very, very long time. I stopped working in the hobby shop back in 2011 and moved on, getting the training and experience for what has always been my dream job. Having (at least partially) succeeded, I rarely interface with customers directly anymore. But I missed it here, so I keep lurking.

    Sucktomers happen everywhere. In this new job when pop up, they rarely affect me. And I hardly have to post about them here because, well, if they are that bad, they make the news. But I do occasionally hear about some real winners that don't. Per example below.

    The players.
    TWR - KATL Tower. Atlanta Hartsfield-Jackson air traffic control, party responsible for all traffic on, around, just leaving, or about to arrive on the runways. (these people are gods. No matter how long you have been wearing four stripes, they make more money and they always get to tell you what to do). They do their thing at one of the busiest airports in the world.

    LH444 - Lufthansa 444 Heavy. An Airbus A340 on a 10-hour flight from Frankfurt, Germany to KATL. The most immediate sufferer in this case.

    The set-up
    A bright, clear, beautifully sunny September day with visibility >10 miles and a gentle breeze out of the west. Traffic is at local high tide, though, so things are pretty stressful.


    ==========

    LH444 - Atlanta Tower, Lufthansa 444 Heavy, AJ (a specific approach path) for [runway] two-six right.

    TWR - LH444, winds two-eight-zero at 5 (winds out of 280 degrees, just north of west, blowing at 5 knots), runway two-six right, clear to land.

    LH444 - clear to land two-six right. LH444.

    *TWR has some exchanges with other aircraft. Everything is moving like clockwork*

    LH444 - TWR, LH444 going around.

    TWR - LH444, acknowledge you are going around. Is there a problem?

    LH444 - TWR, LH444, No problem. We had a report from the cabin of a passenger getting out of his seat.

    TWR - LH444, follow missed approach procedures. Climb and maintain 3500 feet, contact ATL departure on...

    ============

    The poor fellow, after nearly ten hours in the air, was just minutes from touching down when his idiot passenger decided he couldn't take it any more. Following the missed approach procedures, LH444 had to spend another fifteen minutes in the pattern when the A340 burns ~70 gallons of fuel a minute, and with that fuel costing ~$7 a gallon, this guy cost the airline about $7400.

    Way to go.
    O God, thy sky is so vast and my plane is so small.

  • #2
    One hopes the airline will charge the idiot but they probably won't. OTOH what the idiot did could (and SHOULD) get him in BIG trouble with the FAA and TSA...

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    • #3
      It being a federal crime to disobey the crew of an airliner, all they had to do to get him put in the pokey was to due-diligently command him to sit down and he refuse. Unfortunately unless the passenger is truly unruly, they normally get away with crap like this.
      O God, thy sky is so vast and my plane is so small.

      Comment


      • #4
        Wow.

        Standing up on a Bus is one thing, a PLANE, while on APPROACH?

        God, I'm not sure if that's something that deserves a Ban, but it certainly deserves everything up until that!

        Edit: Hah, he posted before I did. Yeah, that sounds like something that a Ban might be good for.
        I am a Blank Space for spacing purposes, ignore me.
        In order to treat someone as your equal, you first need to believe both: that they are your equal, and that you are their's.

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        • #5
          Was the TSA called?

          Comment


          • #6
            Quoth flyonthewall View Post
            Was the TSA called?
            I unfortunately wasn't around long enough to find out. We were second in line holding short for 26R. When we got airborne and checked in to departure about ten minutes later, we heard him get his approach vectors and be given the switch back to the tower frequency and on his way back in. Usually if TSA is going to get involved, the tower says that they will be waiting at the gate, but we were off that freq at this time and never heard him land.
            O God, thy sky is so vast and my plane is so small.

            Comment


            • #7
              Something like this will cause problem for hours after. Chances are very good the TSA/Air Marshals will be waiting at the gate to find out what happened. That guy will be paying fines he didn't know they could hit him with.

              Comment


              • #8
                Sort-of related. Sometimes on the local bus system we have able-bodied passengers who don't want to move out of the disabled seats so my husband (and his wheelchair) can get on. Our drivers are pretty good about telling people they have to move their backsides, but in the event passengers still don't listen,a quick lecture about how failure to comply with the instructions of a bus driver is legally interfering with the operation of public transit (and thus a felony) usually does the trick.
                "I try to be curious about everything, even things that don't interest me." -Alex Trebek

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