Originally Posted by
ani90
This thread is getting more bizarre in the speculations. So a passenger sitting in a jump seat arguing and shouting at a flight attendant is analagous to setting fire on a plane, trying to open aircraft door or flying a 500,000 bomb and should get a fighter jet escorting them back to land? I would hope countries dont waste their military resources in such manner. Clearly this very dangerous man who could bring down an aircraft in the air wasn't considered dangerous on land as he was left to roam EWR freely and was mingling and filming with other passengers after landing.
And people with box cutters have done far more than that. You miss the point. I don't know whether they thought he was a danger to the plane. I do know they were obligated to report an unruly passenger and that, once reported, they were going to have to divert. Because the UK is going to make them land. Or Spain is going to make them land. Or the US is going to make them land. What the aircraft does NOT get to do is continue through various countries airspace with some sort of situation onboard. Since 9/11 there's only one policy. Land. The. Aircraft.
I don't think anyone doubts that the crew or airline can and should terminate a flight if there is safety concern. That is not being questioned. What is being questioned is the idea that the crew and airline are infallible; i.e if the crew decided to divert a flight then it means there was definitely a threat to safety of the plane. This, by definition, cannot be the case and some planes will be diverted for percieved risk when there was no true threat to the plane. This is necessary as an airline would happily divert n number of flights to save one disaster (no idea what that number is and what makes business sense). So the question is whether a de-escalating or different approach in crew management of problems passenger can help reduce the number of (retrospectively unnecessary) diversions where the threat was actually not as projected.
They don't make the call that there is a threat to the aircraft. They make the call that there is a passenger issue of any kind that cannot be resolved by the cabin crew. Once that call is made, notification occurs. You will then divert. It doesn't take someone trying to wield a fire axe in the cabin. There's no scale of divert/don't. If there's a passenger absolutely refusing to obey crew orders, you divert. If there's a passenger having a medical/mental health crisis, you divert. If there's a passenger who passes away, you might or might not divert, simply because there might be nothing to be done except cover them with a blanket, but in that case, the passenger issue is resolved.
As mentioned by clubord in post #28 it could be that this (and prior incidence with J poachers) is unique to TLV, given more specific requirements on passenger behavior on entering Israeli airspace, and had nothing to do with a percieved threat to safety of the aircraft, hence why the guy was not arrested and taken away on landing.
Possible, but unlikely. More likely is we just don't notice how often it occurs. Here's a partial list from last year (The third city listed is where they diverted to):
6.07.2022 EasyJet U27169 / EZY23KG Liverpool Tenerife Lisbon disruptive passenger
30.06.2022 British Airways BA249 / BAW249 London Rio de Janeiro Fortaleza disruptive passenger
14.06.2022 United Airlines UA33 / UAL33 Tokyo Los Angeles Honolulu disruptive passenger
16.05.2022 Ryanair FR9130 / RYR72XZ Manchester Faro Nantes disruptive passenger
15.05.2022 Jet2 LS542 / EXS7LX Gran Canaria Newcastle Porto disruptive passenger
15.05.2022 Air Canada AC870 / ACA870 Montreal Paris St. John's disruptive passenger
13.05.2022 IndiGo 6E1723 / IGO1723 Doha Bengaluru Mumbai disruptive passenger
04.05.2022 Avianca AV44 / AVA044 Bogota Mexico City Cancun disruptive passenger
21.04.2022 Ryanair FR3232 / RYR1RP Manchester Malaga Madrid disruptive passenger
27.03.2022 Enter Air E47835 / ENT7835 Warsaw Espargos Fuerteventura disruptive passenger
21.03.2022 Jet2 LS895 / EXS4UA Manchester Antalya Vienna disruptive passenger
08.03.2022 LATAM Airlines LA8114 / TAM8114 Sao Paulo Barcelona Fortaleza disruptive passenger
03.03.2022 Aeromexico AM617 / AMX617 Toronto Mexico City Houston disruptive passenger
13.02.2022 American Airlines AA694 / AAL694 Phoenix Honolulu Phoenix disruptive passenger (Return to departure)
09.02.2022 Frontier Airlines F91335 / FFT1335 New York Orlando Raleigh-Durham disruptive passenger
07.02.2022 American Airlines AA482 / AAL482 Charlotte Los Angeles Albuquerque disruptive passenger
02.02.2022 Wizz Air W63265 / WZZ3265 Bucharest Dubai Ankara disruptive passenger
31.01.2022 Delta Air Lines DL65 / DAL65 Rome Atlanta Barcelona disruptive passenger
20.01.2022 United Airlines UA90 / UAL90 New York Tel Aviv New York disruptive passenger (Return to departure)
19.01.2022 American Airlines AA38 / AAL38 Miami London Miami disruptive passenger (Return to departure)
They're not going to negotiate, offer treats or a lolly to an unruly passenger who refuses to obey cabin crew instructions. They're going to land the plane because the government who's airspace they are flying to is going to demand it. From that governments perspective, they don't have cameras aboard, they don't have any idea other than there is an issue. If there's an issue, you land the aircraft. No negotiation. Land. The. Aircraft.
Regards,
-Bouncer-