Another drunk passenger, another dispatch of fighter jets
 

This is getting really ridiculous...

Source

I hope the F-16 were helpful in assisting the drunk pax in vomiting.

Great idea! Drunk passenger, shoot down the plane. Have we gone completely nuts?

I wonder what the FBI is going to do with him-- they can charge him with trumped up charges that have absurd prison terms, or they can leave it at some form of PI/DC. This will show their true colors . . . wait and see.

but at least they didn't dump the terminal at cos for 6+ hours ;)

here's the official press release from airtran and i'm wondering if they will have to pay royalties to the tsa for using the expression "out of an abundance of caution" ;)

http://pressroom.airtran.com/phoenix...089&highlight=

oh, and something tells me we're gonna be seeing a lot of this in the near future (and god help the poor pax who has a case of the runs :eek:)

Scrambling jets for drunks is now SOP. Thank you President Obama.

let's not send this off to omni k? :) it ain't his fault. look what happened after 9/11-we had the army stationed in and patrolling our own airport terminals.

so with that being said, if you are going to blame anyone, you have to blame the captain of the aircraft as right, wrong or indifferent, the captain is in charge of the aircraft and their decision is law. it's about the closest thing to absolute rule that you can have.

It's the new heavy handed version of Scared Straight. For only $10,000/hour.

Fighter pilot on bullyhorn: "Hey drunk. Promise to join AA or we will shoot down your plane."

What does the USAF have in the way of air-to-air armaments anyway? Sparrows, Sidewinders, AMRAAM, or just plain ol' 20mm cannon?

All of the above depending on the load.

Wonder how long it will be before an airliner gets splashed because of stupidity like this? You don't send fighters up to bring down an airliner with a drunken passenger. That presents too much of a chance to have something go wrong (i.e. air to air collision, weapons discharge, etc). Save that for aircraft being hijacked.

...not to mention that a drunk passenger can't be a Muslim. Indeed, out an abundance of caution, they should ask all passengers to get drunk. If someone refuses off to GITMO!

You apparently never went to Bahrain. :D

Most Muslims will - whenever they've access to alcohol - use it in rather large amounts, and as they aren't used to it, will get drunk quickly (with the obvious results..)

Would Sidewinders cause enough damage? I imagine at least one for each engine. Looking up the 3 incidents of airliners beign shot down by fighters:

KE 902 (707) was forced to land after being hit by a pair of R60 (Aphids). KE7 was destroyed by a pair of R8 (Anabs). LN114 (727) was brought down by 20mm cannon.

I'd like to see it happen (with me or anyone I care for not on the said a/c, of course) and see the reaction after.

Not very observant ones and especially not right before a martyrdom operation.

Control surfaces are very delicate (ever noticed NO STEP ?)