AA Flight Attendant's Nervous Breakdown

[chaos]

Perhaps a former California high school teacher

http://chicagoist.com/2012/03/09/americ ... endant.php

One of American Airlines' current slogans is "Be Yourself. Nonstop." An AA flight attendant apparently took that literally this morning, as she used her plane's public address system to rant about the airline's bankruptcy and tell passengers the flight was going to crash.

The drama started aboard Flight 2332 from Dallas/Fort Worth-to-Chicago. The flight, scheduled for takeoff at 8:25 a.m. Central time, was back at the gate by 9:15 after the flight attendant began using the PA as the plane was taxiing on the runway to announce to passengers, ""We are not taking off. We're having technical difficulties. We are heading back to the gate."

Another flight attendant took to the PA system to ensure everyone things were okay, before the attendant continued with her rant. "Captain," she said. "I am not responsible for crashing this plane."

Naturally, the passengers started to worry. Flight attendants began shuffling through the plane and some men, in Dallas for a Sam's Club company meeting, helped the crew restrain the attendant. She was taken kicking and screaming from the plane when it returned to the gate.

Dallas resident Bethany Christakos told the Dallas Morning News the attendant was "screaming bloody murder" by the time she was removed from the plane. Two other flight attendants were slightly injured. The cabin crew was replaced, the flight was back in the air before 10 a.m. and, according to Christakos, the passengers nerves were smoothed thanks to a liberal doling out of alcohol.

Maybe American should adopt Delta Air Lines' onetime slogan for a day: "We get you there."

Amazingly, the passengers seem to take it in stride. You can hear her screaming to get off the plane in the beginning of the video http://dfw.cbslocal.com/video?autoStart ... Id=6826807

[chaos]

What is going on with the airlines? I'm sure it is a stressful place. Now the pilots are freaking out.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/28/us/je ... &seid=auto

By MANNY FERNANDEZ
Published: March 27, 2012

HOUSTON — The captain of a JetBlue flight from New York to Las Vegas suffered a bizarre midair breakdown on Tuesday morning, forcing passengers to restrain him as the plane made an emergency landing in Amarillo, Tex., where he was removed from the aircraft and hospitalized.

Passengers said the captain of Flight 191 was acting erratically outside the cockpit and could be heard shouting about Al Qaeda and bombs being aboard.

Gabriel Schonzeit, a passenger seated in the third row, told The Amarillo Globe-News that about two hours outside Las Vegas, the captain left the cockpit.

“It seemed that something was off with him,” Mr. Schonzeit said in a video clip posted on the newspaper’s Web site, adding, “Within a short period of time, he started screaming about Al Qaeda and possibly a bomb on the plane and Iraq and Iran and how we’re all going down.”

. . .

The captain’s behavior was reminiscent of another embarrassing moment for the airline, when a flight attendant, Steven Slater, opened a plane’s emergency chute, grabbed a beer from the beverage cart and slid down to the tarmac at Kennedy Airport in New York in August 2010 after a dispute with a passenger who stood up before the seat belt light had been turned off.

On Tuesday, Flight 191 left Kennedy at 7:28 a.m. with 135 passengers and six crew members, one of whom was off duty. A spokeswoman for the federal Transportation Security Administration said the co-pilot became concerned as the flight was under way that the captain “exhibited erratic behavior.” The captain left the cockpit during the flight, and the co-pilot locked the door, according to the statement.

The captain tried to re-enter the locked cockpit, but his security code appeared to have changed, and he was seen banging on the door and could be heard demanding to be let back inside, passengers said. It was then that passengers subdued him, the authorities said.

The co-pilot diverted to Amarillo while the off-duty pilot took over the captain’s duties. The plane landed at Rick Husband Amarillo International Airport at 10:11 a.m., and the captain was taken by ambulance to a local hospital, the authorities said.

. . .

[mockbee]

I'd say 10 to 1 it's Ambien........

[dali]

[Pandemonium]