BearX220

KE480, HAN-ICN: The American entertainer Richard Marx volunteered to get a deranged passenger under control while his wife, entertainer Daisy Fuentes, took pictures and video. They posted: "We have video of entire chaotic and dangerous event on @KoreanAir_KE 480. Lasted 4 hours. Crew completely ill-equipped to handle situation."

Much criticism of KE cabin staff not knowing how to cope. With my limited experience of KE I do not disbelieve.

Story:

http://radio.com/2016/12/20/richard-...nger-on-plane/

ysolde

More here:

http://www.nbcnews.com/pop-culture/p...-korea-n698391

My first thought was, "Wait, Richard Marx is married to Daisy Fuentes??? I thought Daisy Fuentes was still sitting around crying over her break-up from Luis Miguel. Guess she got over him . . . "

My second thought was, "Glad I wasn't on that flight. Four hours? Yikes!"

mikesaidyes

Here is a better one. It says that the guy had two whiskeys with his meal, got in an argument with the person sitting next to him and slapped him.

http://www.newsis.com/ar_detail/view...0401&pID=10400

changger1

The other interesting part of this whole incident is the fact that this donnybrook occurred in business class. I'm sure these FA's are use to demanding passengers in J but this takes that to a whole new level.

mkjr

No one comments on the fact that I had no idea FA's had access to tazers...is this common knowledge?

I am surprised they did not have handcuffs or those plastic thingies.

I am also surprised no one kicked the crap out of the guy. What, perhaps he is a buck 80? soaking wet...many things onboard to put down a guy like that.

mcgahat

Yeah, well, they were relying on Richard Marx to handle the situation....that answers your question I think.

tulalit

I found this incident on YouTube,
https://youtu.be/w0zCg4A-9L4

spainflyer

And this went on for four hours??!! Did anyone think to inform the captain, who might have off-loaded this PAX at the nearest wide spot in the road??

The guy is falling down drunk and they can’t even get him properly tied up.

The airline staff were clearly “Ill-equipped” indeed! And what happened to the notion that, if a passenger were to act like that, he would “lose face”?

mkjr

that looks like a wile e coyote cartoon where he is trying to tie up Road Runner with some...

ACME brand "no knotting rope..."

JoeDaejeon

I asked a Korean speaking colleague about this situation and he informed me of some news reported in the Korean press but which I didn't see in the international press.

The guy was the son of the chairman of a mid-sized Korean company, and he was traveling to Vietnam on business. When he arrived in Incheon, he was supposedly too drunk to be questioned, so he was sent home. Yes, you heard that right, sent home! And no further news reports, so it sounds as if there will be no action taken against him. Korean Air reported that the flight attendants did their job according to the book, and there was nothing wrong with their performance.

My take on this is first of all KE should be totally ashamed of how they handled the situation. They're response is really appalling. I don't at all mean to criticize the flight attendants, because by KE's own admission, they followed the rule book. But given what happened, and that people on the flight were attacked and injured by the rogue passenger, and even the passengers who weren't injured still had to endure this for the length of the flight. Yet KE thinks they did nothing wrong. Very clearly to me, their rules are totally inadequate, and they should have immediately issued an apology and a statement that they will review their policy and make changes so that this sort of thing doesn't happen again. But nothing of the sort was done. Rather they tried to make it sound as if they did all they could and their procedures are totally proper. Absolute BS coming out of KE's PR department. Enough to make me never want to flight this two-bit airline again.

But what's even more disturbing is that evidently no action will be taken against the rogue passenger. I enjoy Korea and Korean culture, but I find this to be completely unacceptable. If the same thing happened in any western country, the passenger would have been looking at serious jail time. The message KE and the Korean government are sending is, "Be as obnoxious on a KE flight into Korea as you want. If you're lucky, you might get a lot of physical contact with some beautiful flight attendants, and they'll even tie you up. But once you land, nothing will happen to you, and you can go about your business."

Now what if instead of the passenger being drunk, he was a terrorist? And due to KE's inadequate policies, he couldn't be contained, and as a result caused a serious incident with the plane? Is KE still not going to accept responsibility? What if a drunk rogue passenger ended up killing another passenger? Is KE and the Korean government going to say, "that's ok, because he was drunk"? It blows my mind how completely backwards KE and the Korean government are in this respect. I seriously hope some western countries will take a hard look at KE and the Korean government and consider banning KE flights to their country, being they very obviously have no clue about how to handle dangerous situations.

Sorry for the rant. This whole situation really upset me.

slimjin

I completely agree that it's ridiculous and that things like this are sometimes (often?) not addressed appropriately, but according to all news articles I can find he was booked without detention. It's true that he was too drunk to be questioned, and so he was initially sent home, but he will be summoned later for questioning, and his father is quoted as saying that he will follow through with the police's orders (take that with however much salt you want, but it's also not true that the police showed no intention of charging him).

http://news.chosun.com/site/data/htm...122101408.html

"경찰은 술에 취해 조사가 어렵다고 판단해 임씨를 보호자인 아버지에게 인계해 일단 귀가시켰으며 조만간 다시 불러 조사할 예정이다... 그의 아버지는 "베트남 현지에서 처리할 일이 있었는데 다른 일로 바빠 아들을 대신 보냈다"며 "추후 아들을 경찰에 출석시켜 조사를 받게 하겠다"고 말했다."

pointy

Thank god no nuts were involved

slimjin

But it *did* involve a nut!

Also, update: the passenger in question has been banned for life from KE, and the police plan to charge him with the same crime as in the nutrage case, which means jail time may be involved (up to 5 years, although unlikely to go for that long).

http://news.naver.com/main/read.nhn?...aid=0003711798

http://www.yonhapnews.co.kr/local/20...030500065.HTML

TennisNoob

This is ridiculous but the same would have happened on OZ.

The FA's are very powerless and are afraid of losing there job. The customer was somewhat of an big shot and in the companies interest it might not of been right to "offend the customer further".

I'm happy though the media has taken enough attention to this.