Flakes on a Plane

[Opusnone]

Is it just me, or are there more instances of crazy people flying these days?
I think I'll stick to the ground.

Female passenger from yesterday
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,11069-2315896,00.html

Bipolar passenger killed in Miami
http://www.cnn.com/2005/US/12/08/airplane.gunshot/

Hasselhoff deemed unfit to fly
http://www.tmz.com/2006/07/27/drunk-hasselhoff-deemed-unfit-to-fly/

Drunk passenger breaks window in fit of air rage
http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/front/archives/2006/07/20/2003319565

Drunk flight attendants attack passenger
http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2004/07/21/1090089223414.html

Plane diverted after note found
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/ap/world/4126393.html

And on and on...

Here's some "passengers from hell" stories from flight attendants from the UK 2001
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/talking_point/1452360.stm

And my favorite

Man defecates on bar cart in 1996

"The Associated Press reported that a 56-year-old managing director of a Greenwich, Conn., trust company was busted after going berserk on a United Airlines flight. The trouble started on a flight from Buenos Aires to New York city last Oct. 20. when the banking guru made a deposit in a lump sum.

The banker, a Gerard Finneran, had become extremely hammered on the flight and began pouring drinks on his own head. When the flight attendants tried to stop him, he went on a rampage, threatening one stewardess and shoving the other into an empty seat. "Later," the AP dispatch reported, "Finneran lowered his pants and defecated on the food cart, authorities said, using linen napkins as toilet paper."

He was arrested on landing and released on $100,000 bail, and told he could not fly on a commercial airliner without first obtaining written permission from the federal prosecutor. For some strange reason, the court also ordered that he "undergo evaluation for alcohol abuse." No shit.

The good news is that the rest of the passengers said that the food cart fare tasted better than usual after the incident."

[davsand]

1. Increased stress = increased breakdowns.

I seriously think we are living in a time when air travel is such a stressful thing that people start to fall apart because of it. I also think that we are living in a time when ANY strange behaviors are noticed and confronted--thus increasing the number of reports.

Quick summary of it all:
More people are freaking out, more people are noticing the freak outs, and we are hearing about it more often.


Laura

[displacedtexan]

2. You're exactly right! These people are terrorized.

Mission accomplished?

[YDogg]

3. Top Ten Gerard Finneran Excuses

http://www.cbs.com/latenight/lateshow/top_ten/archive/ls_topten_archive1995/ls_topten_archive_19951027.shtml

[Opusnone]

4. Some more light reading before you travel the unfriendly skies

airrage.org
http://www.airrage.org/

Wikipedia's take
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_rage

When cabin fever turns to air rage
http://edition.cnn.com/2006/TRAVEL/08/08/air.rage/index.html