Crazy Cat Lady Causes Cabin Chaos
Jeff Edwards September 01, 2015
Surprised Siberian cat lies on a white background
A crazy cat lady threw a tantrum and caused a flight diversion that required a fighter jet escort after flight attendants confined the cat she smuggled onboard.
Transporting a pet on an international flight is not an easy endeavor. There is endless documentation to provide, stacks of forms to fill out and a likely quarantine period upon arrival. A passenger on a Condor Flugdienst flight from McCarran International Airport (LAS) to Frankfurt Airport (FRA) allegedly decided to dispense with those formalities and simply smuggle her feline friend aboard the plane in her handbag.
According to Denver CBS affiliate KCNC, the passenger’s ill-conceived plan began to go awry shortly after her flight departed LAS. The cat-obsessed passenger, described as a European fashion model, reportedly became enraged when flight attendants discovered the contraband cat and placed the woman’s feline companion in the plane’s lavatory.
“She said that she was part of the mafia and that the mafia follows her around the world and that she was able to bring the plane down if that needed to be the case if she couldn’t see her cat,” passenger Dashenka Giraldo told Denver’s ABC 7 News.
Nothing like having an emergency landing in #Denver on a 12hr flt to #Europe BC of crazy ladies punching stewardess😳 pic.twitter.com/Uex0b8tgD5
— Dashenka Giraldo (@DashIsabella) August 29, 2015
Other passengers say that the outraged model also threw a paper cup at one flight attendant before reportedly slapping a member of the cabin crew. “I think this woman was mentally ill,” passenger Inge Mueller told CBS News. “I felt sorry for the cat.”
The Friday evening flight was diverted to Denver International Airport (DEN) under the escort of two F-16 fighter jets from Buckley AFB. After a 24-hour delay, passengers were eventually allowed to board a rescheduled flight to Germany.
“The disturbance aboard the flight was deemed a customer service issue and not a life-threatening matter and the airline handled the matter according to their policy for customer service related matters,” according to a statement from the FBI, which investigated the midair incident but did not make an arrest.
[Photo: iStock]
So if you pay for your pet, it can stay under the seat in front of you, if you pledge mentally challenged, it can roam your seat but if you just bring it on board, it has to go to the toilet? That sounds comparably insane to what this girl just pulled off.
The cat could have been a 'comfort animal' requiring minimal paperwork to get past TSA. (I am not sure if TSA even checks that any more.)
Damn, she is super hot though, can't we just let it slide :)? How dumb is this, yea there's forms but so what, with who she is she could've probably gotten someone else to do it. I have 2 thoughts as far as what could've happened here. 1) She's seen people travel with cats/dogs in the cabin and just assumed she could do that. I know you can't just show up like that, but I have no idea exactly how to go about it, so if I were a more naïve traveler I could see just showing up like that, but you'd hope someone would catch it before boarding. Maybe also thinking (no joke) "I'm hot, if I get caught, like a speeding ticket I'll flirt my way out of it and everything will be fine". 2) She knew she had overstayed her visa, and trying to get paperwork for her cat might expose that, but of course she didn't wanna leave the cat in the US. Though I'd think with these visa things, if you're working you can probably get it extended with the help of your employer no? So why not just do that? 3) or maybe she's just dumb and lazy and figured she'd take the cat and no one would notice.
Czech model Zaneta Hucikova. She is now facing charges for overstaying her visa.
burbanite - I am sure if it had been a bottle of water or a pair of nail clippers they would have spotted it. I bet no one told them to look out for a cat so what are they supposed to do?