Lawyer: Women's fight over bags led to attendant's tirade-started before takeoff

[RamboLiberal]

Police had said Mr. Slater became irate when after a rule-breaking passenger defied requests to stay seated, then accidentally hit him in the head with her luggage.

Mr. Turman said the dispute had begun earlier, when the flight was still waiting to take off from Pittsburgh, when two female passengers got into an argument over space in the overhead bins. That's when Mr. Slater was struck in the head, Mr. Turman said.

The dispute flared up again after the plane landed in New York when one of the women, who had been asked to gate-check her bag, was enraged that it wasn't immediately available.

"The woman was outraged and cursed him out a great deal," Mr. Turman said. "At some point, I think he just wanted to avoid conflict with her."



Read more: http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/10222/1078991-147.stm#ixzz0wEkjY46L

[xultar]

1. That woman should be arrested for not following a flight attendants instructions.

[hedgehog]

2. and he should be excused by reason of temporary insanity!

Not that I think he was insane, mind you, just that I'd like to see him pardoned and returned to work!


I have a lot of sympathy for him - I traveled a month or so back with one carryon for my C-Pap machine and 1 for my computer - all legal. I didn't even have a separate purse. I got my bags into the overhead, and i was a little sheepish because I had 2. Then I looked around and as the flight attendants were asking people to keep their coats intheir laps to save space in the overheads, I saw people jamming in coats, sweaters, newspapers, everything imaginable! taking up way more than their share!

[blueamy66]

3. Oh my memories of the good old days in the airline industry.

Passengers didn't get away with the shit they get away with these days.

I remember many a smile when my Dad or one of my uncles or one of my Dad's friends would put an outrageous passenger in their place.

[Peace Patriot]

4. That's interesting. I was already wondering about him getting hit in the head with the bag--

that he might have been a bit (or a lot?) dazed, in dealing with this situation. And since the bag to the head happened earlier in the incident (than first reports said), I'm wondering it even more now. None of the reports say how hard he was hit. So this is just a thought. But I happen to have a car with a trunk that doesn't lift up all the way unless you push it up; i've hit my head on the trunk lid more than once, and every time I feel a surge of rage, like I need to hit something, and I'm dazed for a few moments. (I've learned to be very careful about this, and NOT lean into the trunk to get something before I've pushed the trunk lid up.) And if I were a flight attendant, when something like that happened--a sudden bang to the head--and I was of course trained to keep my cool, I might just do what he did--hold it in, until I couldn't hold it in any longer then hit the lever opening the shoot and GET OUT. What he did might have been a heroic act of self-control. He didn't hit a passenger. He only blew his stack verbally and got out the fastest way he could think of.

I also suffer mild claustrophobia. So I can REALLY UNDERSTAND someone feeling a surge of emotion, aggravated by a bump to the head, in a confined space. You just want OUT. NOW.

I understand that this man just finished taking care of his dying father, and is now taking care of his dying mother. He's sure got a case for emotional distress. If the accounts of this incident are accurate, I hope they drop charges against him, and give him a desk job or severance pay. He is not at fault.

[Karenina]

5. It's called a "snapping experience."

I've had several in my 6 decades. My heart goes out to this flight attendant. Rene Foss describes the typical ramp up in her book "Around the World in a Bad Mood (Confessions of a Flight Attendant)."

[RamboLiberal]

6. Woman smashed the overhead door in to his head in Pittsburgh

“The woman initially at Pittsburgh slammed the overhead into his head,” Mr. Turman said of Mr. Slater.

A passenger on the flight, Greg Kanczes, said that he saw a large, fresh-looking gash on Mr. Slater’s forehead at the beginning of the flight. “It was about an inch-and-half long, and it was a big red mark or cut,” Mr. Kanczes said by phone Tuesday. “There was no bandage.”

-----

Mr. Turman said that on the ground at Kennedy, the tension flared up again. When the female passenger tried to get her bag out of the overhead before the crew had given permission and Mr. Slater instructed her to remain seated, Mr. Turman said, the woman “was outraged and cursing” at Mr. Slater, who “wanted to avoid a conflict.”

-----

At the arraignment on felony charges of reckless endangerment and criminal mischief in a packed room in the basement of criminal court, Mr. Slater’s court-appointed lawyer, Howard Turman, said that Mr. Slater’s activation of the slide was not reckless. He said Mr. Slater followed the proper procedure for activating the slide, checking out the window first to make sure no one was on the tarmac who could be struck by it.

http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/08/10/jetblue-attendant-held-on-bail-as-his-lawyer-offers-details-of-flight/?hp