Flying these days has become a pretty serious and daunting endeavor in the wake of the failed bombing attempt on the Amsterdam-to-Detroit flight on Christmas day. And U.S. officials appear to be putting the word out — don’t mess with us.
Two plane incidents last week — one plane bound for Hawaii returned to Portland, Oregon and another flight diverted to Colorado Springs, Colorado — have resulted in two men being charged with interfering with a flight crew which carries a maximum 20-year prison sentence if convicted.
In the incident involving a Hawaiian Airlines flight to Kahului, a passenger seated in the exit row of the plane was unhappy that he could not store his carry-on bag where he had easy access to it and decided to fill out a comment card.
The passenger, identified in court documents as Joseph Johnson, sealed the card and gave it to a flight attendant, but it was opened and the crew became concerned about the content. The pilot decided to turn the plane back to Portland and Johnson was taken off the plane.
Johnson wrote on the card, which he said he filled out as a joke, that he “thought I was going to die, we were so high up, I thought to myself: I hope we don’t crash and burn, or worse yet, landing in the ocean, living through it, only to be eaten by sharks, or worse yet, end up on someplace like Gilligans Island, stranded, or worse yet, be eaten by a tribe of headhunters…”
