Flight passengers describe hours of bizarre behavior

[seriousstan]

---cut to relevant part ----

According to an affidavit and passenger accounts, Mrs. Mayo began pacing the plane from the front to aft lavatory and asked a flight attendant, "Is this a training flight for United Flight 93?" -- the flight hijacked on September 11, 2001, that crashed into a Pennsylvania farm field.
Mrs. Mayo demanded to speak with an air marshal, saying the contents of her bag would be of interest. Her bag contained a screwdriver, body lotion, several cigarette lighters and a bottle of water. The affidavit did not say how she smuggled the items on board, despite being screened twice at London's Heathrow Airport.
When confronted by the captain, Mrs. Mayo made a reference to bomb assembly, saying, "There are six steps to building some unspecified thing."
"She made reference to being with people associated with two words," the affidavit said. "She stated that she could not say what the two words were because the last time that she had said the two words she had been kicked off a flight in the United Arab Emirates."
http://www.washtimes.com/national/20060817-111533-1828r.htm

[MrModerate]

1. Clearly deranged. Originally described as a "panic attack" . . .

Which sounds about right. Do they have an SOP for when an apparently otherwise normal passenger goes crazy? I ask because this business of "interfering with a flight crew" usually falls into two categories: 1) assholes trying to throw their weight around and 2) people in the process of flipping out.

[MsKandice01]

3. I have panic attacks...

And that is no panic attack. Panic attacks manifest in physiological symptoms, not behavioral. Anxiety attack? Maybe..but it sounds more like a mental breakdown to me.

[EFerrari]

5. This lady was clearly psychotic. Panic attacks don't do that but

the two situations aren't mutually exclusive. If the panic attackis "severe" enough, it can shade into paranoia and delusion.

What a mess.

[Mz Pip]

2. That's weird

I heard that she had none of those items in her carry on.

Well, I guess if this is true she's just lucky she didn't get shot like the nervous guy in Florida.

Couldn't someone have just given her a Valium and told to sit down and chill out?

Mz Pip
:dem:

[jseankil]

4. and then get sued by her family because shes allegric and kills her? /nm

nm

[mnhtnbb]

6. I'm glad that it was more than pacing that made the crew nervous;

we had a trip to London once that I refer to as "the time I walked to England."

I spent most of the flight walking the aisles. My back went into a spasm on our flight to JFK. By the time we boarded our flight to London I was mellowed out on tylenol and booze--but that didn't last. I couldn't sit, I couldn't lie down, nothing helped. Thank goodness the flight attendants didn't freak out, because I was pretty antsy.