No, but here are some marching flamingos instead.
Posted on 12/29/2005 12:58:18 PM PST by proxy_user
A drunken passenger who abused cabin crew on a flight to Tenerife spent 36 hours castaway after the airline abandoned him on a tiny island in the Atlantic, 300 miles from his destination.
Monarch Airlines said that the man became rude and aggressive towards staff shortly after flight ZB558 took off from Manchester on Tuesday evening.
When he refused to calm down, the pilot took the decision to divert the plane and make an unscheduled stop-off at an airstrip on the tiny Portuguese island of Porto Santo.
The passenger was frogmarched out - and his luggage removed from the hold - before the Airbus A321 carrying 200 other passengers took off again, leaving him behind.
Porto Santo, described as an unspoilt island paradise with a population of fewer than 5,000, is a two-hour ferry ride away from the nearest major airport on Madeira.
An officer at the airport's police station told Times Online that the man had remained on the island until this morning, when he managed to book a seat on a German charter flight to the Canary Islands.
A spokesman for Monarch, the Italian-owned operation based in Manchester, explained that the man had put the safety of other passengers in danger.
"Despite repeated attempts by Monarch staff to calm the individual, the passenger’s behaviour did not improve and the decision was taken to divert to Porto Santo at 1955 where the passenger was removed," he said.
"The action was taken in the interests of all the passengers. That sort of behaviour is not acceptable. He was the given the chance to calm down and he declined it. He was given a form, a caution for his behaviour, and he refused to sign it."
A spokeswoman for British Airways said that the airline operated a "yellow card" policy under which disruptive passengers were issued with a written warning and then arrested an the destination airport if they continued to misbehave.
She said that only in the most extreme cases - and only once before on record - would a plane be diverted and the passenger removed.
Keith Bill, of British Airline Pilots’ Association, said that the captain of any aircraft has wide-ranging powers to deal with troublemakers who threaten the safety of other passengers.
He said: "There's no doubt that the captain was acting within his rights to take this action. Pilots feel very strongly that anyone who puts the lives of the crew or passengers at risk ought also to be punished by the courts."
Porto Santo, formerly under Portuguese control, earned its reputation as the desert island of legend because of its almost complete absence of vegetation. It is a two-hour ferry trip from Madeira.
But its inhabitants have enjoyed a new-found wealth in recent years as the place where Madeirians like to go to get away from the tourists.
It was discovered by the Portuguese adventurer Joao Goncalves Zarco, a protege of Prince Henry the Navigator, in 1418 and was once the home of Christopher Columbus who married the governor’s daughter before heading off to discover the New World.
No, but here are some marching flamingos instead.
Man, them's some serious hot pants Miss Prince is sportin'!
Her breastplate is almost - ALMOST - as cool as mine, btw.
Nothing she has is as cool as yours, Xena. =)
these pratts keep cropping up don`t they ?
This is why my carry on always has a roll of duct tape in it when I fly. Just for people like this or any moo's who decide to get feisty on the plane.
What a cool way to solve a stupid problem.
My hat is off to the pilot who had the cojones do "do the right thing"!
Today's manufactured, silicone-enhanced, teenybopper wannabe 'stars' should take notice.
What I find amazing is that the pilot risked the plane and 200 passengers by landing this monster at a "remote" airstrip that may not have been built for servicing such aircraft. I am not a pilot by any stretch of the imagination, but am I being overly cautious in this?
Maybe I don't need to lose 20 pounds so much as redistribute it.
The charts will indicate for what class of aircraft the runway is suited, and what fuel is available. The pilot knew what he was doing.
I accept your answer. We're sorry for the brief turbulence. The "flame the idiot passenger and praise the pilot" light has been turned on again.
That's for you and your husband to discuss ... but in general I'd say that real men like ladies with a bit of meat on their bones. Sir Mix-a-lot recorded the definitive statement on the matter ... ;'}
Took me a second to remember the source of your tagline. Nice.
Could be worse,..could be Amboy.
The ACLU is representing him and suing for $100 million.
Thanks! It was inspired by a mention of the Baseball Furies on a thread earlier today.
I'd like to get down to where I was when we met - I was more or less a size 8 then, and I'm hovering on the high end of 12, pretty close to 14 now.
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