Idiots Standing Before Takeoff
 

Was on a flight out of Dulles today, all situations normal (plane too hot, late pushing back, cute girls not sitting next to me), waiting on the end of the ramp area to pull into the line waiting for takeoff.

When Mr. Rocket Science three rows in front of me gets up and his companion, Dr. Dim Bulb, stands up and starts rummaging around in the overhead for his stuff.

Well, the FA's started yelling at him to sit down, he looked dumfounded, confusion ensued. We were only five minutes late leaving though.

Jeeze, was it his first time on an airplane?

I was on an SNA-LAX flight a couple of weeks ago that, as usual due to noise abatements, left 20 minutes late. During the takeoff roll, two people jumped up and ran to the lav. The second had to wait, standing outside the lav, and stood there during rotation.

The FA didn't say anything to them, which I found quite difficult to believe. I thought the captain could have been fined by the FAA for having people up and about during takeoff?

This actually happens quite often in Europe in general.

Could be attributed partially to the fasten seat belt sign coming off MUCH sooner on European carriers than the US carriers.

My answer to all dumb-passenger related problems: a taser.

Mike

Hopefully if any of these candidates for Darwin Awards got injured due to flying backwards during takeoff, their subsequent lawsuits would be laughed out of court (after being stuck with all court costs, lawyer fees, and a newly implemented 'idiot' tax)

OMG...Never saw this. And, I've seen lotsa strange crap on planes :confused:

Once, the moment we landed, a bunch of pax got up, opened the overhead compartments, and started to retrieve their stuff. We were still on the active runway and the thrust reversers hadn't even kicked in yet when they started to do this. It was a non-US carrier.

I was on a COex flight out of EWR. Last flight of the day after flying KUL-DXB (6 hrs) and DXB-EWR (14 1/2).

Some parent had uncontrolled kids on the COex flight. Not only were they yelling and screaming, but they were running up and down the aisles bothering pax during taxi as well as during take-off.

FA sat back and did nothing. When I complained, she allowed me to take seat 1A -- but the kids were up and about bothering people the entire flight - I was being kicked from behind in 2A as the kids played musical chairs.. the kids even disrupted the FA's work, but it seemed to me she either didn't care or was too intimidated to speak up for whatever reason. Kids settled down during decent.

I believe being in the aisle during taxi, let alone during take-off and rotation violated some FAR's at bare minimum. FWIW, I called CO Customer Care to complain. I stressed the FA wasn't doing her job and there were numerous FAR violations dealing with safety, but CO Customer Care said FA's can't control what other pax do, esp. children.

:rolleyes:

On other flights, if a pax gets up, the aircraft has stop taxi completely. We lost our slot at ORD once because someone got up in taxi and had to use the toilet. We stopped taxi and pilot even made an announcement we could not continue due to FAA safety regulations. FA's were banging on the lav door, and the passenger was just clueless that he delayed the flight by 30+ minutes as we had to take on more fuel and then re-join the queue for departures.

I suppose with COx, we'd never get off the ground with this family on board if FAR's were followed. lol ...

SDF_Traveler

Sounds like China.

Maybe they were arming themselves to beat you to the front Lav. :D

Not sure what the FA or captain could have done (besides FA yelling from jump seat) if they were already in the take-off roll when the idiot got up.

I did have a woman get up as we slowed on the runway in DTW a couple years ago. She had been psychotic and up/down all night on a redeye from LAS. FA did call the captain and he stopped as soon as we were on a taxiway and made the announcement that we could not move until she sat down. FA did tell me that it would be a fine for her and the Captain PERSONALLY if anyone from the FAA was on board. IIRC, it was around $5000.

In effect: FA's = Useless

I was on a plane with someone who was on his cell phone from the time we pushed back through the time we were on the runway and in the process of accelrating for takeoff. The gentleman was transmitting and receiving pictures on his cell phone (or so I believe, because he occassionally lifted his arm over his head and pointed his cell phone in different directions and at other times studied his cell phone as if he was trying to decipher a coded message). Fortunately, a pilot of the airline (I believe it was Delta - this happened a few years ago and my memory is hazy), who was dead-heading and sitting in front of the offending passenger turned his head and told him to shut it down as we were barrelling down the runway. Oh well, the good thing was that nobody got hurt, but it reassured me to know that there are people who have fewer social graces than me.

Very strange, I also had a similiar occurence 2 weeks ago where taxing for takeoff (LGA or EWR) some lady runs for the lavatory, we almost took off with the lady in the lavatory. The FA's at first started to say something and get up but this lady pissed and moaned she had to go and they never even unstrapped themselves from the jumpback seats.

I have seen more and more of this ever since the incidents in London last month...very odd, its brought out the crazies on the airplanes.

This is ridiculous. I don't see why the FAA wouldn't fine (and then ban) this woman from flying. It is neither the Captain (flying the plane at the time) or the FAs fault. Again, lay the fault where it is due.