Sunwing flight diverted due to smoking passengers

[BigQ]

http://news.ca.msn.com/top-stories/flig ... ing-family

A Sunwing flight from Halifax bound for the Dominican Republic was forced to land in Bermuda Friday night because three passengers refused to stop smoking on the plane, CBC News has learned.

The Bermuda police service said they were called to the airport around 9:55 p.m. local time to meet Sunwing flight 454, which was on its way to Punta Cana.

Police said they boarded the plane and arrested the three smokers.

"It appeared to be a father, a mother and a son. The parents appear to be in their 50s. The son, I believe, is around 22 or so," said acting Insp. Paul Simons.

[JMACK]

So what do you figure the cost of that little I can do what ever I want to do will total. Bermuda is not the cheapest place to get a hotel room for you and a 180 of your closest friends.

Wow!

Maybe a nicotine patch would have been a better option...........Staggering $$$$$

J

[PilotDAR]

Fire extinguisher.....

[GUMPS]

wrong thread.

[Doc]

Three people wont put out their cigs, so you put your company in a position that will cost MANY thousands of dollars to rectify??? WTF?? I'd FIRE the entire crew. Are these pilots/crew brain dead carps?? I know these are non-smoking times, but the proper action would have been to refuse to board these passengers for their return flight. How do three people lighting up constitute a hazard to the flight? If you think it's worth the $100K or so, this will end up costing, you clearly are lacking in common sense.

Move them them to the back of the airplane, turn up the air vents, and leave them at their destination. Contact all other carriers with whom they can get a ride back to Canada on, and leave it at that. Try getting home from the DR, when the airlines won't give you a seat!! The lesson would be learned.....IN SPADES......at NO cost to Sun Wing!

[GARRETT]

I hear what you're saying Doc but how do you tell others carriers not to let these 3 idiots travel on their airline? Money is money and any other airline would gladly take their money. So the smokers get to smoke all the way to destination, laughing at the regulations the whole way, and still likely get to fly home after their vacation. Rules are rules and you have to be consistent. I can bet if the crew were to let this go on they would be in as much $hit as the smokers.

[Stanley Steamer]

Hey Doc: Criticizing the crew proves they aren't brain-dead, YOU are. As a passenger I would rather have them deal with disruptive passengers this way rather than endanger MY life. When an idiot smokes in the bathroom, denies it and won't tell where the butt was disposed of this was the right call. # biligerent, ignorant passengers with no regard for any other person on that plane needed this to happen. Hopefully they NEVER fly again.

[Redneck_pilot86]

I'd have to agree with the crew on this one. As a passenger sitting near these twits on this flight, I would have been pissed. I have a right to fresh air on a flight, and these people do not have the right to take that away from the 100+ other people on board. Ideally the three would be incarcerated in Bermuda and the rest of the passengers could carry on to destination.

Maybe a fire extinguisher in the face would be the right response...and if you don't pull the pin you won't even have to re-certify it.

[CID]

Doc, I assume you would rather let the incident further escalate. And in the end the message would be that its OK to break the rules and endanger your fellow passengers. And they likely would have tampered with the smoke detector.

The pilots did the right thing.

[flyingmaverick]

yeah its easy to blame the crew but they did the right thing , just charge the freaks , let them pay the cost

[Brown Bear]

yeah its easy to blame the crew but they did the right thing , just charge the freaks , let them pay the cost

I don't know man. That's a pretty high priced call. You think the three dinks are good for it? I don't. Sunwing will be on the hook for the cost. They won't recover it. Folks who fly Sunwing to the DR don't have the required $$$ to cover this. Turn them over to the DR police. They get to spend their vacation in a third world prison. In the DR, the "freaks" would probably get ten years. In Bermuda, they'll have to dress for dinner And i agree. Nobody was in danger here.

[Redneck_pilot86]

yeah its easy to blame the crew but they did the right thing , just charge the freaks , let them pay the cost

I don't know man. That's a pretty high priced call. You think the three dinks are good for it? I don't. Sunwing will be on the hook for the cost. They won't recover it. Folks who fly Sunwing to the DR don't have the required $$$ to cover this. Turn them over to the DR police. They get to spend their vacation in a third world prison. In the DR, the "freaks" would probably get ten years. In Bermuda, they'll have to dress for dinner And i agree. Nobody was in danger here.

Sure it would be a high-priced call...but so was continuing. They don't know where the butts went, if they were actually extinguished or if they are still smouldering away somewhere in the aircraft. A fire on board and the subsequent diversion would be more costly then taking the safe way out. It is quite clearly stated that smoking on board is not allowed, I can't believe that there are people on here supporting these 3.

[GyvAir]

Do you think that it would be solely a crew decision? I would think there would be some discourse with head office before deciding to divert a flight due to smoking passengers.

[Cap't Hilts]

so what call should be made in the case of the returning flight..You just can't continue and tell the smokers they won't be flying with Sunwing anymore..you'd have people lighting up all the time..

[GyvAir]

You just can't continue and tell the smokers they won't be flying with Sunwing anymore..you'd have people lighting up all the time..

Agreed.. sometimes it's cheaper in the long run to get out the big hammer right off the bat and get the message out. Give people the idea that it's no big deal consequence-wise and there will be a group that will take advantage.

[Meatservo]

I kind of like Doc's idea, in the sense that it would be funny to let the yokels think they got away with being tough guys who got their way, until it was time to go home.

I don't know if I would call the crew "brain dead carps" though. They probably acted exactly in accordance with their company's policy on the subject, which, if true, would certainly have resulted in their being disciplined for doing what Doc suggests.

I myself would certainly have been disciplined, since I think if I were the captain I would first have gone back myself to put the three of them under arrest, had the older two of them tied by the wrists to their seats, and then gone forward and sent my first officer back to beat the son semi-unconscious in front of the parents. THEN I would have booted their asses off in Bermuda without shutting the engines down.

It's not so much the smoking that incenses me, it's the "not doing what you're told by the crew" thing. "Passenger" and "customer" are two related things, but are not the same. You better do what you're told aboard my plane. I would even be prepared to be subjected to discipline in order to make this point perfectly crystal clear.

However, I am a freighter pilot, which is probably all for the best.

[Skyhunter]

Think you guys are all missing one big point. What is sunwings policy or SOP for this. Did the crew follow it? If the did, they are right. If sunwing didn't have a policy or SOP, it is neither right nor wrong, but call that could have gone either way and the company should back what the crew did. If the crew went against SOP's or policy.. well then there might be some room for Doc's point of view.

[Changes in Latitudes]

I'm not sure I'm ready to crucify the crew as some have.

"The passengers involved in this ridiculous situation refused to say what they did with their cigarettes so that meant that there was a potentially hazardous material, which was an incendiary, onboard the aircraft," said McWilliams

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/nova-scot ... court.html

[tiggermoth]

Also keep in mind the "modern way of thinking" that our society has fallen into.....think lawsuits.

How many of the OTHER passengers would have filed some kind of lawsuit against Sunwing had they NOT taken action and landed early. Perhaps the extra cost of the diversion would be the lesser of the two evils.

[Doc]

Also keep in mind the "modern way of thinking" that our society has fallen into.....think lawsuits.

How many of the OTHER passengers would have filed some kind of lawsuit against Sunwing had they NOT taken action and landed early. Perhaps the extra cost of the diversion would be the lesser of the two evils.

Too difficult to just take the buts away from them, I guess?

[tiggermoth]

Too difficult to just take the buts away from them, I guess?

That would be the easiest for sure. But if they are the type to be ignoring the flight attendants telling them to stop, they are probably also the type that would have created quite a scene if you tried to take their smokes away. Most likely would have resulted in a diversion anyways, except due to a cabin disturbance (fight) rather than smoking.

[HHI]

Too difficult to just take the buts away from them, I guess?

Obviously Yes.

Smoking on the aircraft is an offence and can be dealt with at the arrival airport.

Refusing to obey the directions from the crew is a much more serious offence. Refusing to say where in the lav the butts were put makes this case a definite hazard to the safety of the aircraft.

News reports state they had to dump fuel and/or land overweight. Not a decision taken lightly by any professional pilot just to prove a point.

Everyone (including the offenders) is safe and as the crowd control cops would say " move on folks, nothing to see here."

[Go Guns]

News reports state they had to dump fuel and/or land overweight.

FWIW, the 737 can't dump fuel. Depending on how overweight they landed, could explain why the engineer had to inspect the airplane before it departed.

Just read that the smoking charges were dropped

The father pleaded guilty to behaving in a disorderly manner by using abusive and offensive language, while Donna McNeil pleaded guilty to disobeying a lawful order by a flight attendant.

David McNeil Jr. denied a charge of smoking on the aircraft, while he and his father both denied disobeying a lawful order.

The Crown elected to offer no evidence on the matters which the defendants denied, and the smoking charges were dropped.

While the family members remained silent, lawyer Victoria Pearman said that the trip was a family vacation gone awry and that tensions were high because of delays in the flight’s departure.

[xsbank]

Remember Stan Rogers...

[HHI]

News reports state they had to dump fuel and/or land overweight.

FWIW, the 737 can't dump fuel. Depending on how overweight they landed, could explain why the engineer had to inspect the airplane before it departed.

That's why I said the press reported the fuel dump. The 737-200 and 737-300 (and even some of the 767's I used to fly had no fuel dump capability. I don't have any first hand knowledge of the newer 737 versions.