I suppose it's hopeless: Several people have now alerted me to "breaking news," that scourge from cable and online journalism, that a passenger was removed tonight from a JetBlue flight because of unspecified "security concerns."
Online, there are at least 100 separate reports of this half-baked information, from the mightiest news outlets to the most humble. Fox News, of course, has that "breaking news" banner on top. Here's Fox hyperventilating as usual. But they're by no means the only outlet giving undue emphasis to what certainly appears to be a nothing story.
Look, it's Saturday night, and there is no news, unless you count the South Carolina upset of No. 1 ranked Alabama today -- and no reason to suspect that this JetBlue incident is actual news to anyone except the people on that airplane who were inconvenienced. Passengers -- drunk, crazy, abusive, whatever -- are routinely removed from flights.
So chill, Saturday night editors, unless you got something -- which you don't, as far as I can see.
[UPDATE, Sunday Oct. 10] -- Yeah, never mind. The "security concerns" involved a passenger who tried to switch seats and got into a dispute with a JetBlue flight attendant, who luckily did not pull a Slater, grab two beers, blow the emergency chute and slide to infamy. This time.
The New York Daily News informs us this morning: That no arrests were made, but "the captain of the Airbus 320 ordered all passengers off the plane because of the incident, requiring everyone to go through security screening again before being allowed back on the massive craft, officials said."
Wait a minute, now. The New York Daily News believes an Airbus A320 is a "massive craft?"
Saturday nights/Sunday mornings in Newsroom America. Not an inspiring sight.
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Hey look, I was taxiing out at Dorval airport at 10 p.m. bound for Paris when we all hear a guy wailing, and I mean seriously wailing, in the very back.
ReplyDeleteThe entire plane fell silent, but I wrested myself out of my budget window seat and went to the very back row where the flight crew usually hang out and belted myself in.
Lunatic was just across the aisle, still wailing in the now crypt-like plane, which had come to a complete standstill on the tarmac.
A stewardess (sorry, will never lose that word) came up to me and said "Sir, you have to return to your seat!" and I said "Ma'am, I ain't going nowhere till Loony Toons has been removed and if necessary, I'll do it myself."
She realised I meant it and I waited till two burly security guys boarded through the back door and hauled this clown's sorry ass off the plane.
Then I returned to my seat. She later comped me a double scotch on the rocks, but I just have to say that not a single passenger lifted a finger to help, were seemingly paralyzed with fear and made not a squeak, but if I even HALLUCINATE an incident on an airplane I'm about to fly on, I'll be personally all over it like stink on you-know-what.
I'm not a doctor or an air marshal, but I can play one on TV.
There is no shortage of lunatics in this world, and I've decided to be that guy in the white coat.
But CNN didn't check in on THAT one.