But it’s a federal offense not to comply with signs and crew instructions
The guy who decided to have a smoke on a plane and then, when busted, tell them he wanted to set his shoes on fire will not be charged. Diplomatic immunity and all. Like you and me, only better.
April 8th, 2010 at 10:38 am
This guy’s from Qatar. He’s probably the fourth son of the Sultan’s seventeenth concubine.
April 8th, 2010 at 11:07 am
So when is the State Department going to declare this inbred moron PNG and bounce his ass home?
April 8th, 2010 at 11:27 am
I admire his panache, but decry his poor choice of location for his demonstration of it.
I was going through baggage check in Hawaii when the TSA agent gently probing inside my bag jumped back as if electrocuted. She said, “Something is moving around inside your bag. What could that be?”
I honestly had no idea. I’m from Texas. Thinking aloud, I said, “Well, this being Hawaii, I’m pretty sure it isn’t a rattlesnake.”
She then stepped back a few more feet and asked me (politely ordered me, in a quavering voice) to search my bag for the source of the movement. I found that she had somehow turned my Norelco rechargeable electric razor on while rooting around among my socks, and it was vibrating angrily.
We exchanged wry looks, hers of relief that no rattlesnakes were around, mine from being glad that I had not discovered a bomb in my bag, and she let me leave security.
A silly story, but it illustrates that saying something stupid is not necessarily cause for over-reaction by authorities. Over-reaction by others around you can be expected, though. Smoking on a plane and jesting about shoe bombs might, and likely should, get you jumped upon by the closest three rows of passengers, until the authorities arrive.
April 8th, 2010 at 11:37 am
Throw his ass off the plane. While it is in flight, preferrably.
April 8th, 2010 at 12:09 pm
Send him the bill for all the trouble he caused. If he wants to be an asshole he can pay for the privilege.
April 8th, 2010 at 1:06 pm
Too bad there were Air Marshals on board. He probably would have gotten more appropriate treatment from the rest of the passengers if they hadn’t been there.
Kicking the shit out of him probably would have made that “only one” understand that they aren’t so special after all.
April 8th, 2010 at 1:14 pm
I’m not a smoker, so it doesn’t make sense to me, but whatever gave people the idea that it was okay to smoke in an airplane bathroom? As though it’s okay to light things on fire and create smoke clouds in an enclosed vehicle because you’re in the bathroom (which presumably has a cartoon-style pipe leading straight out the back of the plan).
I get that people want their nicotine, especially on long flights. Is it that hard to chew Nicorette or have some Skoal if you really, truly just can’t handle doing without?
That said, I do kind of agree with Mikee: it was a somewhat witty, if ill-advised, comeback.
April 8th, 2010 at 2:17 pm
Diplomatic immunity, okay.
But put him on the no-fly list.
April 8th, 2010 at 4:25 pm
Wolfwood: Smoking on planes has been normal for about the first 95 years or so of manned flight. YEs, that is correct: not too many years ago, smoking was allowed on all flights. Travel by air meant everyone stepped off the plane smelling like week old socks, with red eyes and a headache (I exaggerate just a bit).
Now if you want to enjoy that experience, you have to fly internationally. When a Dulles to Tokyo plane clears US airspace, it instantly becomes foggy inside as every foreigner in there lights up.
April 8th, 2010 at 5:02 pm
It is, sadly, necessary for diplomats to have immunity to normal laws.
(Because otherwise nations play too many games with pestering them for political ends.)
It’s also perfectly sensible to send him home as being unacceptable to the host country…
April 8th, 2010 at 5:41 pm
“YEs, that is correct: not too many years ago, smoking was allowed on all flights.”
Smoking was banned in 1989. I guess 21 years isn’t that many years ago? 🙂