(Newswire.net — September 25, 2014) — Passengers of an L.A.-bound Virgin America flight reported the 28-year-old man tried to open an aircraft door during the flight from Boston.
A CBS-affiliate in Los Angeles quoted passenger Sam Slater as saying a doctor was called after the man started mumbling about not wanting to become violent and later demanded a seat change after arguing with a nearby woman.
After a doctor took his blood pressure, he was moved to a back row of seats that had been cleared, said Slater.
“He at that point was fidgeting and began to remove the plastic covering from the emergency exit door, and tried to pull to open the door,” Slater said, according to the broadcaster.
The Airbus A-319 made an emergency landing at Eppley Airfield just before 10 a.m. local time, said Dennis Messina, an airport operations supervisor.
“The man became disruptive … and had possibly taken medication of some kind,” Messina said.
After landing, police entered the plane and escort the man out. The plane resumed its path to Los Angeles International Airport, “about an hour later.” Messina said.
No injuries were reported and the man was taken to a hospital.
Record shows that in-flight problems which lead to a forced landing of a plane occur more often due to cabin quarrel of a passenger who has lost temper than to a flyer with mental illness record.
Squeezed into tighter and tighter spaces, airline passengers appear to be rebelling, taking their frustrations out on other fliers.
Three US flights made unscheduled landings in the past eight days after passengers got into fights over the ability to recline their seats.
“Seats are getting closer together,” says Sara Nelson, president of the Association of Flight Attendants, which represents 60,000 flight attendants at 19 airlines. “We have to de-escalate conflict all the time.”
It can cost an airline $6,000 an hour, plus airport landing fees, to divert the standard domestic jet, according to independent airline analyst Robert Mann.
“These costs are among the reasons why airlines ought to be arbitrating these in-flight issues instead of diverting, not to mention the significant inconvenience to all customers and possible disruption of onward connections,” Mann says.
The airline industry continues to squeeze domestic passengers into cabins at record rates while adding more seats for high-priced international flights, according to federal statistics released Monday.
The percentage of seats filled on domestic flights reached a record average of 87.4% in June, as airlines failed to add enough extra seats to keep pace with the growing demand for air travel, according to federal statistics released Monday.
The most recent incident took place Sept. 1, when a passenger on a Delta Air Lines flight from New York to Palm Beach, Fla., reclined her seat and hit a passengers who was resting her head on the tray table behind her. The resulting feud forced the pilot to land the plane in Jacksonville, Fla.