Jan 21, 19, 9:48 am

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Summary of Events

Pax boarded last in a wheelchair on January 18th for BR15, LAX-TPE, and he was connecting onto BKK.
Because of his size, he requests to be seated in an empty row of 3. They happily move him.
2hr30min into flight, the man requests that the flight attendant make arrangements for him to use the J class bathroom as he cannot fit in the Y one. The flight attendant inquires with the Chief Purser, who gives the ok.
3 flight attendants along with the original FA (She is a deputy purser in charge of the Y cabin) assist him to the restroom so that he can use it. They inform him where the call button is, then shut the door for him.
One minute later, he rings the call button and the FA's open the door. There, he says that he cannot pull his underwear down; it's off in the front but on in the back. A flight attendant brings a blanket over to cover him as his genitals are now exposed. He whacks the FA's hand and tells her to take that away and help him pull his underwear down. She agrees, dons plastic gloves, and then pulls the back down for him before leaving the lav.
15 minutes later, the man says that they can come in and help him now. Upon opening the door, they discover he is still sitting on the toilet with his pants at his ankles. He says, "I'm done. You can wipe my butt now". The flight attendant says she cannot do that, and he berates her, saying she agreed to do it previously and now he already went so he needs her to do it or he's just going to sit in the lav. The CP is called in from rest at this point and an all-call is made.
After further back and forth with the passenger and conversation between the crew, the CP makes the decision to wipe for him, even though it is made clear they do not do these things. The flight was expected to be extremely turbulent and the FA's decided they could not inconvenience other pax over this situation. CP cannot bear to have her junior crew do it, so she will do it herself while the DP holds the man up. She dons 3 layers of plastic gloves and proceeds to wipe. While wiping, the man moans "hmmmmm, deeper, deeper". After the first wipe, the man claims that he is not clean and demands she wipes again. She wipes a total of three (3) times!
After the 3rd wipe, they say they cannot wipe anymore. He then says "You better have wiped me clean".
The pax now demands the FA pull his pants up for him, which she does because she has already been traumatized at this point. He is helped back to his seat.
Pax goes #2 again later on in the flight, the same scenario plays out again.

Pax History with BR

He has flown roughly 20 flights with BR and did not start presenting problems until May 2018 when he allegedly developed health issues.
According to the FA's, multiple BIP reports have been made against him throughout this year.
In May 2018 on the same flight, he made the same demands but was struck down. Instead, he defecates into his pants in his seat. Pax complains, leading to a discipline hearing for the FA's as to why this happened in this first place. They are let off with warnings.
He urinated himself in another instance on a TPE-BKK flight.
He demanded a Thai crew member change and clean his diaper on a TPE-BKK flight but was struck down. Instead, he let the diaper overflow into the seat.
On the connecting TPE-BKK flight on the 19th, he spilled juice in his crotch area. When he flagged a flight attendant to get her to bring napkins, he also asked her to wipe. She gave him napkins to wipe and said he could do it himself, to which he replied "You can do better than me". The flight attendant wiped for him.

Reports in English

https://nypost.com/2019/01/21/flight-attendant-says-overweight-passenger-forced-her-to-wipe-his-butt/ - New York Post
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6615261/31st-passenger-forces-stewardess-wipe-bottom-long-flight-Los-Angeles-Taiwan.html - Daily Mail
http://focustaiwan.tw/news/asoc/201901210016.aspx - Focus Taiwan

EVA's Disability In-Flight Assistance Policy: https://www.evaair.com/en-global/managing-your-trip/special-assistance-and-inquiry/special-assistance/#assistance-during-the-flight

FA/Union News Conference (in Chinese Mandarin): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-pt-gYpN1D8

BR Statements

1/21 Post FA News Conference Statement from EVA Air (in Chinese): https://www.evaair.com/zh-tw/about-eva-air/news/travel-news/2019-01-21-pr-publish.html (English summary: https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/30681664-post60.html)
1/20 Initial statement: https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/30677669-post11.html

Other Taiwanese Media Reports (in Chinese)

1/21 https://udn.com/news/story/7315/3605843 - includes clarification from BR management post FA union news conference
1/20 https://udn.com/news/story/7315/3604203 - one of the first reports
1/20 https://tw.appledaily.com/new/realtime/20190120/1504018 - another one of the earlier reports (video is not the actual event and this news paper is like the New York Post of Taiwan and Hong Kong)

BR Flight Attendant Sexually Harassed by Gentleman with Disability

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Apr 18, 19, 7:29 pm

#226

username

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Last I heard was that they were going to carry him back to the US with special precautions? I wonder if they really decided to not carry the guy back or now that he is dead, BR says "oh, that is what we were planning on doing"...

Hopefully this ends the chapter and everyone learned some valuable lessons. While the guy was probably not the nicest, to say the least, I also don't think the FA(s) should have exposed these things on social media. The FA's behavior (not following company rules to start with, then goes on social media) showed a lot of immaturity.

Sozee likes this.

Apr 20, 19, 12:56 am

#227

buylowsellhigh

Join Date: May 2006

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Knowing BR they would probably have shoved it under the carpet as a non-issue if the FA's didn't come out to tell their story... So I think the public debate probably served a greater good on both sides. I'm sure the passenger's lawyer was probably getting ready to throw some frivolous lawsuit against EVA, so I'm glad this nonsense will probably not happen.

ithinkurdumb and royng like this.

Apr 21, 19, 11:18 pm

#228

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Join Date: May 2001

Posts: 10,850

Quote:

Originally Posted by buylowsellhigh

The problem is there were 3 sides in this - the passenger was one of the sides and, despite how he behaved, was entitled to privacy. Even on FT, someone obviously with inside information of the passenger/incident was disclosing it. These things put the FA and BR in really bad positions.

I think any lawsuit would not be frivolous and his family can still argue all this stress contributed to his death. People sue for settlements, not to win, and BR was not 100% in the right thanks to the FA and others who were leaking internal information.

The fact the FA did not understand "no good deed goes unpunished", did not follow process onboard and afterwards (not have the guy arrested upon arrival at TPE then on passenger privacy/company internal information) and then resorted to "Internet justice" shows the lack of maturity.

All that said, I think the "lack of maturity" is what BR likes in its employees and also actually makes the service extraordinary (like in this case) at times. I am sure most US FAs understand "no good deed goes unpunished" and behave accordingly...

Apr 22, 19, 10:58 am

#229

smith80678

Join Date: Jul 2010

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They also put the wrong Steve Gambee in the news article after they attempted to locate his facebook profile. Some poor guy out in Arizona with the same name had his picture placed in the Tapei News. Now that guy should have a lawsuit; https://www.facebook.com/steve.gambee.9

Jul 12, 19, 8:04 pm

#230

hkskyline

Join Date: Jun 2005

Location: HKG

Posts: 1,469

EVA Air fined over passenger butt-wiping incident

Taipei, July 12 (CNA) EVA Air was fined NT$400,000 (US$12,780) by the Taoyuan City government Friday for failing to protect its employees from harassment following a case six months ago in which flight attendants were forced by a passenger to wipe his backside.

An EVA Air spokesperson confirmed that the company had received a copy of the order from Taoyuan's Department of Labor and said it will decide whether or not to file an appeal after studying the decision.

The fine was triggered by an incident on board an EVA Air flight from Los Angeles to Taipei in January when a man estimated to weigh more than 180 kilograms forced several flight attendants to help him remove his underwear while in the toilet and then demanded they wipe his butt after he finished relieving himself.

According to the Taoyuan Labor Department, although EVA Air investigated the incident, it did not carry out concrete preventive and corrective measures as pledged in its investigation report.

It was therefore difficult to affirm whether EVA Air took appropriate preventive steps to create a friendlier work environment free from sexual harassment, the department said in concluding that EVA Air had violated the Act of Gender Equality in Employment.

More : EVA Air fined over passenger butt-wiping incident | Society | FOCUS TAIWAN - CNA ENGLISH NEWS

Feb 18, 21, 9:27 pm

#231

smith80678

Join Date: Jul 2010

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Deeper deeper butt wipe

Quote:

Originally Posted by Toshbaf

Very likely, the passenger is a troublemaker.

However, he is so obese that it is possible that he genuinely needs help wiping, particularly in a small lavatory.

Why does there need to be a man? Not everyone is heterosexual. To a gay man, the passenger's genitalia is like showing a straight man a woman's breast. No, it should not be assumed that men need male aides and women need female aides. Most women have had sex with a man so genitalia is not a new sight.

I am sure that the FA did not wipe as thoroughly as was needed since they were grossed out. So the reports of "deeper, deeper" is not out of line. Plus his butt is big so the anus is deep in there. I am not convinced he said "hmmmm (pleasure) deeper, deeper" but rather just "deeper, deeper".

Still, I conclude that the man is demanding and is possibly a troublemaker. I'm not so sure he should be banned but should be required to have an aide travel with him.

Having the thin airplane toilet paper also makes it harder to go deep and wipe someone's .... If it was a thicker toilet paper like Charmin, would have made it easier🧻🚽💁🐻