http://www.abcnews4.com/story/221900...etained-by-fbi

"Either if it's just being disruptive and not obeying the crews of the flight command, or if it's being problematic with shifting bags and taking bags out of the overhead, both would have spelled or could have spelled trouble for Southwest," said aviation attorney Mary Schiavo.

Schiavo said on average, 12 people a day are injured on flights where luggage is opened or shifted during a flight.

"If you open the overhead bins in flight -- people don't realize this, but every year 4,500 people are injured above the skies of America from items falling from overhead bins," said Schiavo.

Schiavo said it is possible the passenger removed from the plane drew attention to himself because of the shifting luggage, not terrorist like activity.

"If there is something you need then by all means you have to talk to the flight attendant, don't touch them," said Schiavo.

A spokesperson with the Transportation Security Administration said this was a customer service issue with the airline and TSA does not have the authority to make any arrests.

Schiavo said it's also probable this incident was alcohol-induced."

Ok, so this "aviation attorney" seems to know jack and shyte about actual flying, since you don't call an FA over to get stuff out of the overhead for you.

Good to see that TSA actually said that they can't arrest anyone. That's the only part of the article I like.

These kinds of decisions are made by the captain using input from the FA's.
I need something from my carryon in the overhead bin. It is a kind of greenish, bluish book bag with a wildlife pictogram on the front. And be careful. The contents are fragile.

So this gives no new info at all. Says we have to follow all directions of FAs (not entirely true) but does say the TSA doesn't have the authority to arrest (that is true). I'm really waiting for someone who was on the plane to post what actually happened.

What a terrible piece of journalism, and what incoherent rambling from the 'authourity' quoted.

I assume she's an attorney that represents airlines. "Sit down and don't move the entire flight, it's for your safety. And if you don't, its a fine and maybe a trip to Gitmo!!!".

1) How many passengers have received a civil penalty from the FAA for getting something out of an overhead bin on a flight?

2) Has any passenger who did receive a civil penalty actually pay it?

This comment is absurd. Airlines don't do that. The airlines pick on old and frail people or children.

Maybe she thinks that those few brief days of insanity following the shoe-lighter are still in effect ie one cannot have anything on one's lap, one must stay seated the last hour of the flight, etc?!

None of it makes any sense, even if she is a few years behind the times, especially considering her supposed position. (On a side note, I do know someone in her supposed position for one of the big carriers, and she certainly is far more coherent, rational, and aware of what flying is really like)

Hmm, the men were concerned about their bag so they're terrorists (and please don't tell me that that's not what the quote says, it is absolutely the implication).

Yup, must be alcohol. Because it's always alcohol. Unless it's FWB.

Did this lawyer go to GSL (Googling School of Law) with Francine? Until I read this last article, I felt pretty neutral about the whole thing. It sounds like this lawyer's trying to protect the airline but she's so clueless that she made it worse.

Mike

The airlines in the US have done as PTravel indicated, so his comment is not absurd even as this incident may be different than a FWB incident.

Most FWB denied boarding or deplaned incidents of which I am personally aware have never involved going to the media. A lot of people hit by anti-Muslim bigotry don't do anything formal in response to it -- unfortunate as I would like to see more lawsuits openly won against paranoid airline personnel and passengers that flag down innocent persons at airports and on board planes for "additional" "security" hassles.

I think this is the lawyer in question:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Schiavo
http://www.maryschiavo.com/

Sounds like she's getting those inflammatory sound bites out there to cause baseless speculation in the event she gets any work out of this.

To those of us old enough to remember "Scary Mary" as IG/DoT, that would be true to form.

Okay. They have a hard job. Real hard. Like, customer service hard. Like, complaint desk hard.

But that doesn't mean they are automatically right, 100% of the time, completely beyond question, and totally omnicient.

Nor does having a hard job excuse poor job performance, abuse of power, or breakage of FAA regs or airline policy.

And don't try to lay blame on the captain; just because he's the final authority doesn't mean it's all his fault if the FA lied or misrepresented the facts to him. The captain places a lot of trust in the FAs, and if an FA tells him that something is serious enough to divert, somehow I doubt that he's going to hold a formal inquest to determine all relevant facts before coming to an informed decision; he's going to take the FAs at their word and divert.

However, I won't assume that either party was at fault here. Could have been the passengers' fault, could have been the FA's fault. I'll wait till there is more information before I form an actual opinion.

I will say this - the story sounds fishy based on the skimpy info so far provided. Either these guys were causing a genuine disruption which hasn't been reported, or the FAs went way overboard for innocuous behavior that is not disruptive or suspicious.

They could have been loudmouth drunks, disrupting other passengers or hitting on the FAs - but nothing like that was mentioned in any of the stories. The stories mentioned "suspicious" behavior with luggage.

The FBI took all three into custody, determined that they had broken no laws, and released them - how truly suspicious could their behavior have been if they weren't actually doing anything illegal?

NEED... MORE... DATA!!!

Need more data? No you must have blind faith in the Government, FAs & Pilot. BLIND FAITH.

Think of the Children.


Now that the bull had been said, it's kind of shocking that no reporters have gotten the people to talk which casts some suspicion on their activities unless the FBI has been hard at work spinning its machine.

I'm not a lawyer, but I use the Bob Loblaw Law Blog as a reference. With that, I think I can take on Mary in a courtroom.

Just in case you should stay at a Holiday Inn Express the night before.