Since 9/11, America has gone to great lengths to keep terror out of the skies. But that didn’t stop a near fatal incident from occurring yesterday.
JetBlue flight 191 from New York to Las Vegas was forced to make an emergency landing in Amarillo, Texas on Tuesday after the plane’s captain apparently snapped and became belligerent.
According to the flight’s co-pilot, there was an incident in the cockpit involving the captain that caused concern, so he “convinced the captain to leave the cockpit and then locked him out.” That’s when the captain became enraged and “started pounding on the cockpit door.”
Passengers say the captain “raced inside the airliner screaming obscenities and shouting about threats from al-Qaida and bombs aboard the aircraft.” He “went to a restroom, then emerged, shouting, ‘Iraq, Israel, we got ’em, we’re all going down.'” Some passengers captured the chaotic scene on their cell phone cameras, while others tackled and subdued him.
An off duty JetBlue pilot was on board and joined the co-pilot to land the plane safely. According to JetBlue the captain was “removed from the aircraft and taken to a local medical facility.” The airline is remaining tight lipped on the captain’s identity or what transpired inside the cockpit that concerned the co-pilot, but an airline spokesman is calling the entire incident “a medical situation.”
Ironically, this is the 2nd bizarre episode involving airline staff in 2 weeks and the 3rd in 2 years. 2 weeks ago an American Airlines flight attendant, who was said to be bi-polar, snapped in mid-flight and screamed demonic obscenities, before passengers and the other attendants also had to subdue her. And who can forget the JetBlue flight attendant who argued with a passenger while still on the tarmac, then pulled the emergency slide and disembarked the aircraft?
Is it time for the airlines to review their hiring practices?
