A flight attendant who loses it on the job called a hero?

This was the deal: A woman got up - out of her seat - as they were approaching JFK. This was after the Fasten Seat Belts sign came on, and the usual announcement was made to stay in seats as the plane was landing. She proceeded to get a carry-on out of the overhead, totally ignoring the announcement to stay seated. He went to tell her she was supposed to stay in her seat, her bag hit him on the head as it was coming out of the overhead, and she then called him a "bleep".

After 28 years in the sky, having to deal with rude people and people who don't take the rules about fastening their seatbelts seriously, and then being sworn at, he lost it. Over the intercom, he specifically had a message for that woman, not really anyone else.

I'm not condoning his loss of control. And, of course I don't think he's a "hero". But I surely think this woman should also have to answer in some way. Those rules are in place for a reason - and many people pay no attention, or are abusive when told to stay in their seats. And you can bet, if something had happened and the plane had hit turbulence, or an air pocket, and this woman was thrown around, she'd be the first to sue the airline.

He's gotten his 15 minutes of fame but unless he can land on a reality show I think his future career options are limited.

He cursed the passenger, grabbed a couple of beers and exited via the emergency chute. If you're going to go, you might as well do it with style!

I don't blame him, the idiots who get up when the seatbelt sign is on drive me nuts too. Who cares if you get your bag first, where are you going to go when the door is still closed?

I agree with you there. I just sit there until everyone has cleared out - the plane isn't going anywhere and if you have luggage, it will turn up at the carousel when it does.

I completely agree. I do think he snapped...sort of a "last straw" sort of scenario. He had worked 20+ years, so clearly this isn't someone who had done something like this before. I think in that moment he did just "lose it". He's not a hero, but I can certainly understand it. As a nurse, I get lots of people who are just plain rude/abusive, who think that the phrase, "the customer is always right" gives them license to act like a jerk. That they can say or do whatever they like, and I should suck it up. Flight attendants probably get this even more so since they serve liquor.

What he did was wrong, but I understand the motivation. I think rudeness and angry outbursts have become the norm for some people. People nowadays get irate when they realize that the rules apply to them as well. It's too bad really.

Some passengers really annoy me when they don't stay sat in their seats, not to mention being totally ignorant when their being shown the safety drills by reading and talking etc... Many a time i've felt like slapping the passengers in front on the top of the head and saying "Pay attention, safety drill!!"

I've pretty much done that!

I've only flown a couple of times. The last time was in 2003 when I went to Detroit.

When I boarded the plane in Winnipeg and the flight attendant was starting to go through the safety stuff, I really wanted to, and needed to hear it because the last time I had flown was in the late 1980s and I was so anxiety stricken that time that I don't remember much.

As the girl was talking a few people around me were laughing and talking. I was having a hard time hearing. So I shouted out "DO YOU MIND! SOME OF US ACTUALLY WANT TO HEAR THIS!"

I got some dirty looks from fellow passengers, but they shut up!!

I'm wondering too. We've heard nothing about her - just that she was a "woman passenger". I'm sure she's somewhere, telling her story, but there's no reason to fly off the handle and curse at a flight attendant, who's just doing their job. Unruly passengers.....there's been alot of that lately.

I see that flight attendant on TV and he seems to have this weird smirk on his face. And no, he definitely isn't any hero. When he deployed that emergency chute, he was very lucky it didn't hit someone on the ground and kill them. I have heard he is facing a possible prision sentence for reckless endangerment.

I get up as soon as I can if I have a connecting flight because they don't usually give you a lot of time. I also get up as soon as I can as a courtesy since I always sit in an aisle seat and I don't know if the people next to me have a connecting flight they have to get to. However, I never get up before the all clear and I never put anything in the overhead bin, so that's not an issue.

If this flight attendant was injured by the woman's case falling on his head, maybe they should have had her detained after she left the plane, given her a fine or something. The way he handled it, deploying that shoot could have injured someone on the ground, and how does that make him any better than the woman on the plane? He basically stooped to her level and is no hero in my book.

Good for you!!! Ever since the days of the "jet set" were eliminated by cheap air fares, the type of unpleasant passengers who once were found only on the buses are now on the airplanes. Sometimes I have to speak up because the airline staff can't. My pet peeve is when I'm on the ground waiting to pick up a loved one and the plane is diverted for bad weather whereupon the other people waiting tend to make a mob and yell at the airlines staff - as if they control the weather I usually tell them "Better 4 hours late than 100% dead!".

The guy walked off his job; don't see how that makes him a hero.


Having time to wait on the plane isn't always possible. If I'm making a connection I really want to get out of the plane ASAP (especially in an unfamiliar airport) and find my next gate to be sure I make my connecting flight!


Nobody should be talking loudly enough so others can't hear the safety instructions, but if you fly a lot you really don't need to hear those instructions over and over. I especially love hearing about floatation devices when we are flying nowhere near a body of water. Maybe that person you want to slap already knows the safety drill.

From the pictures I've seen of him, there is an injury to his head. Of course I have no way of knowing if that is from the luggage or not.

I've flown many times that i know the drill off by heart, but for the sake of being quiet for a few minutes it's just sheer ignorance IMO.

Even if they know the safety drill, they should be respectful enough to keep quiet since there may well be people on the flight who have never flown before. To talk over the person issuing safety rules is just plain rude and ignorant.

I don't think he's a hero, but neither do I believe he deserves a possible 7 years in prison. That's ridiculous.

I've flown over a 1/4 million miles and what I've noticed is flight staff getting more and more rude. I stay off of American carriers whenever I can now.

Is he a hero? Not even close!

From what I understand of what happened, I can understand why that flight and that lady who just couldn't wait until the plane had STOPPED to SAFELY get her bag out of the overhead bin (which was, of course, stuffed way past capacity because of people who just have to bring carry-ons that are entirely too big to qualify as carry-ons). I have heard that he was a bit of a "bag-nazi" well before this woman and her bag hit the flight he was working. Hey, I've got little things that drive me to distraction in my place of work too; mine happen to be safety issues too or I would likely be a nazi about enforcing those annoyances too.

It doesn't matter if she had a connecting flight or not. Guess what? I've missed connecting flights before because I tried to plan with too little time between flights. I didn't want to have a long layover, and I ended up with a much longer layover because I didn't make it. Was it the flight attendant's fault? Nope. Was it the poor woman who was taking the brunt of the anger from everyone who, like me, didn't plan well? Nope. She just got stuck with reissuing tickets that day.

As an aside...After waiting and listening to a woman scream at that lady who was reissuing tickets for at least 20-30 minutes because she couldn't get home with her kid (who was standing next to her) that night, regardless of the hotel and meal vouchers she got and the first flight out the next day, I walked up to the lady behind the counter with a smile, just asking for whatever she could do for me. She managed to "pull some strings" and got me on the last flight home (to the same destination as the screaching woman), and upgraded to first class. A bit of courtesy goes a long way.

It's interesting that you say that since most of the comments here that have been about the change in attitudes over the years have been about the passengers who have that sense of entitlement and gimme-gimme-gimme-now-now-now! attitude that make it unpleasant for others to board the same plane. IMO, the same kind of attitude that the passenger on the JetBlue flight showed when she couldn't wait to get her bag down.

Maybe it's more apparent just what the flight attendants have to put up with to those of us who don't fly all the time. Perhaps it's because people who don't fly mega-miles don't forget that it isn't their job to service us, but that common courtesy and respect go both ways in a civilized society.

I don't even understand why this story has been on the news 2 or 3 days in a row .......
The guy quit- it's understandable, and who cares
I respect and admire his choice to leave rather than allow others to treat him disrespectfully. But, it's his personal choice, nothing the world should care about.

Getting fed up, understandable. Saying something snarky over the intercom and walking off the job, burning some bridges but still in the ok realm. Inflating the emergency exit was what was over the line. I've heard reports of around $25,000 to get that fixed. It is like a car airbag. It doesn't just fold back up.

Imagine someone getting fed up at any other workplace and on the way out the door they smash windows and vandalize property. Imagine there is a really expensive statue outisde the building and he shoves it over, breaking it into little pieces. Destruction of property plain and simple.

So now there are all sorts of stories coming from passengers - they're being interviewed on the morning news shows, he and his attorney are leading the local news - everyone has a different story.

*sigh* - I'm already tired of his 15 minutes of fame.

Now this guy wants his job back. Like that's going to happen!!!!

They are there to serve us. That's what Singapore, Korean and Emirates Air haven't forgotten and why the US can't compete with foreign airlines.

I know many of us have --- or still are working with the public. How many of us have been angered enough to throw a tantrum and quit? All of us, right? But did we do it? Not most of us, I imagine.

Well, somebody needs his job.