aceman

So while we all know the captain is the ultimate authority in these situations, is there an after action grilling with potential repercussions for him?

Flexible preferences

Interesting question. Given the expense involved and the press exposure presumably there would be a significant debrief at the least.

Waterhorse

There are always potential repercussions for every act the Captain makes but the powers granted to an aircraft commander by the ANO (UK aircraft) are actually very powerful. They are the sole authority onboard, they only have to "believe" they are operating in the best interests of safety, given the information they have at the time. They do not need to be able to prove they were right in the subsequent washup, nor indeed do they need to have been right, only that given the info at the time they believed that they were acting for the safety of the flight. For the company to try to go against such a strong piece of legislation would be foolhardy at best. That said the company is careful in deciding who gets that authority and crew are checked very regularly, that includes command decision making.

NWIFlyer

One would hope not a grilling in the traditional sense. I'd hate to feel a captain was under pressure to make a different decision to the one he or she believed was right because of possible later implications.

There's a reason aviation law vestiges ultimate authority in the plane's commander. Any airline would be mad to undermine that through company policy or politics.

Cymro

Someone has screwed up very, very badly here.

Most likely it's the passengers; there's a slim chance it's the crew or the captain, of course. Pesonally, I would be astonished if the captain exercised this authority lightly.

If we see the video, we'll be able to judge for ourselves. If we don't, we can draw our own conclusions that it wasn't in the passengers' interest to release it.

Even if the decision to divert was the correct one, it will be valid to ask whether the crew member could have nipped the original incident in the bud, somehow, even if it meant a free upgrade to business class followed by a free ground transfer at the destination... straight into a jail cell.

LondonCanuck

dont think the Air Force spokesman knew the difference. If you have ever seen the inside of a military transporter, anything above BA Y is "First Class"...

interested to see how this story develops though!

WorldLux

Yepp. Sitting hours in a metal tube to go nowhere. Surprised that unruly passengers haven't been lynched in these kind of situations when the PIC comes on the PA: "Ladies and gentlemen. Due to the dangerous behavior of the couple sitting in 45A and 45B, we see no other way than to divert to a rock in the middle of the Atlantic. As a result of this diversion, we are no longer able to fly to our destination and will return to London."

They can, but it will be difficult to get your money. I doubt that most passengers have enough cash to pay out 300 passengers.

---
What I want to know is whether the couple (or at least one of the two) were in any way linked to Manchester. Someone in OMNI has the theory that drunk, unruly passengers are always somehow connected with Manchester.

Tuggster

I want to see the alleged video lol

bibbju

I'm surprised, and a little disappointed, that we don't have at least one FT member who was on the plane to report in with their version of events. All sounds very bizarre but a brave and bold move by the Captain. Well done him/her! I feel for the rest of the passengers though.

Jordan D

Assume this flight then took a night stop at LGW? A shame that BA couldn't be a little bit more creative (as they had been previously) as positioned a crew out to somewhere in Europe (LIS?) and get plane/crew to meet there to go on ..

I'm not sure how it would work timing wise, but that seems (to an outsider) as a more sensible option ... no doubt someone will tell me why that can't be done.

chazman189

Daily Mail has more info - http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...d-upgrade.html

The man kicked off a British Airways flight for 'demanding an upgrade' was a cancer and diabetes sufferer who claimed he wanted stretch his legs in first class, MailOnline has learned.
Kwame Bantu, 65, was an hour into the 14 hour flight to visit family in Jamaica when he began to feel dizzy and saw his leg swelling.

He then tried to move into first class, where he says he was 'ambushed' by six members of staff who tied him up by his hands and feet before dragging him back to his seat in economy class.
'I was just trying to get some room to stretch my leg,' he told MailOnline. 'But nobody was helping me. They refused to listen about my medical illness and what I was going through. I was treated like a slave.'

Fellow passenger Joy Stoney, a businesswoman from Yorkshire, was thrown off the flight alongside the retired Jamaican man and abandoned on the Portuguese island of Terceira after trying to help him.
Ms Stoney, who was wrongly reported as being Mr Bantu's partner, told MailOnline how stewards told him to 'defecate in his seat' when he told them he needed the toilet.

Have to say, not looking great for BA...

chazman189

Someone posted some pictures too -

ahmetdouas

Yes but all this for going for a walk to first class?

I mean I went for many walks on the plane and the purser told me that he does not mind me walking around the cabin from Y to W and J, as long as I don't walk to F = ))

Still does not add up. Perhaps when they told him to go back to his seat he said no and became aggressive so they restrained him. Obviously the Captain would not have seen this first hand so probably just went along with whatever the cabin crew told him.

I think this is all slightly exaggerated. Perhaps when he was handcuffed the other passengers on the plane got upset so the Captain decided to divert? I mean once he was restrained, this old man clearly posed no danger to the flight!

chazman189

The bit that is odd is how they turfed off a woman for "trying to help him". That, to me, suggests an over-reaction from the cabin crew, assuming she was literally a by-stander

T8191

The latest DM update tells just one side of a story. I would be very surprised if the CC would have tied him up for simply being in First, or evicted Ms Stoney from the aircraft for no reason, so there's a lot more to come from the BA side.