To print this page, select "Print" from the File menu of your browser salon.com > Travel August 17, 1999 URL: http://www.salon.com/travel/diary/hest/1999/08/17/passenger The passenger from hell When a man goes berserk on board, what can a flight attendant do? - - - - - - - - - - - - By Elliott Neal Hester Suddenly weak-kneed and worried, I cowered behind the door in my apartment, wondering why a cop had buzzed the doorbell. Like the sugar-plums in Clement Clark Moore's "The Night Before Christmas," a hundred possibilities danced inside my head. Had I broken the law? Had one of my friends been injured or assaulted? Had some near-sighted pedestrian confused my license plate number with that of a hit-and-run vehicle's? Unable to come up with an answer, and a little freaked out by the possibilities, I challenged the voice that had just crackled through my intercom. He wasn't really a cop, he said. He was an ex-cop -- a private investigator, to be exact. And he was here, at my apartment, because of an incident on an airplane. I knew immediately what he was referring to: After landing at Dallas-Fort Worth International a couple of months before, one of my passengers had been taken into custody by local police officers. I remember watching as he was dragged away by a battalion of cops -- fear and confusion supplanting the malice that had once glinted in his eyes. For two months I had wondered what had happened to him. Now was my chance to find out. Through the peephole I eyed a tall, gray-haired gentleman dressed in casual clothes and carrying a briefcase. When I opened the door, he flashed the practiced smile of a door-to-door salesman. I welcomed him in anyway, pointed to a chair and, without offering small talk or liquid refreshment, sat on the other side of the room and waited to hear his spiel. "My, my, my," he said, admiring the living room furniture, "nice apartment you have here." He didn't sound like an ex-cop. He spoke with a soft, authoritative Southern lilt, like a plantation owner from 19th century Georgia. His "private investigator" credentials made me think of Barnaby Jones with an upscale pedigree. "My, my, my." I just stared at him in silence. "Well ... ahhh," he said, "I'll get straight to the point. I'm workin' for the lawyer who's representin' a certain Adam Ratliff. He was a passenger who had a little problem on your flight from Guatemala last month. You remember, don't you?" "Yep." "Well, being that you are the flight attendant who signed the complaint, we'd kinda like to hear your account of the events that took place that day on the airplane." "Your client lost the plot." "What?" "He lost the plot. Went berserk. Lost his frigging mind." "Oh, OK, I get it. Wait a sec." Barnaby reached into his briefcase and removed a tiny recording device. "Do you mind if I get this all on tape?" "Go right ahead." The soft-spoken P.I. flicked on the recorder and placed it on my cocktail table. "OK. Would you mind starting at the very beginning?" I took a deep breath, tapped into the memory banks and told him the whole story ... About an hour after take-off from Guatemala City, we began the dinner service -- drinks, followed by the ever-present chicken or beef entrees. Halfway through the service, a loud, somewhat primordial scream ripped through the cabin. "ARRRRGGGH ... ARRRRGGGH!!" It sounded as if a large, carnivorous animal had escaped from the cargo hold and was terrorizing passengers at the rear of the airplane. When I swung around, I realized I was only half right. A wild-eyed male passenger was terrorizing passengers at the rear of the plane. His arms flailed, his head jerked spasmodically -- he looked like the deranged criminal in a low-budget biker flick. "ARRRRGGGH ... ARRRRGGGH!!" His screams were directed at a woman who was sitting in a window seat, across the aisle from him. The terrified woman leaned away, far away, so that her back was planted firmly against the window. It seemed, for one absurd moment, that the sheer force of his howling had blown her flat against the fuselage. "ARRRRGGGH ... ARRRRGGGH!!" Slowly I walked toward the irate passenger. Every step was measured by the nervous eyes of 60 coach-class passengers who would have gladly bailed out if parachutes, rather than peanuts, had been provided on the flight. The problem passenger was in a row by himself, sitting in the middle seat. I stopped, stared at him and smiled. Dressed in blue jeans and a tattered blue jean jacket, frizzy hair cascading past his shoulders, he looked up at me with eyes as wild as Borneo. "Can I get you something to eat? Sir?" His eyes crawled from my shoes to the crown of my freshly shaven head, looking for a reason to launch an attack. "Nawww," he said. "But I'll have another Jack Daniel's and a beer." On his tray table there were three empty Jack Daniel's minis and a crumpled can of Budweiser. "I don't think that's a very good idea," I said. "How about a Coke?" He glared at me with I'm-gonna-kick-your-ass eyes, eyes that meant business, eyes that had somehow never been mentioned in the flight attendant training manual. He was going to jump me, I was sure of it. I could see the intent as it blossomed in his eyes. Of the 110,000 flight attendants employed by U.S. airlines, however, he had picked one of a handful who probably shouldn't be messed with. A 6-foot, 195-pound, street-savvy semi-homeboy gym freak, I felt confident in my ability to handle this dude. In the split second before he leapt, I planned a three-step method of defense: 1) step sideways; 2) grab him by the jacket; 3) use his own momentum to toss his crazy ass into the opposite wall. It seemed perfectly logical in theory, but two problems immediately came to mind. First, the frightened woman was still plastered against the wall where momentum was supposed to send the assailant. Second, all the passengers were watching. If I hurt the guy, even after 60 witnesses watched him attack me, I might have problems when we landed in Dallas. Lawsuit. Suspension. Possible termination. (I know a male flight attendant who was suspended for punching a passenger who had viciously attacked him. The passenger sued the airline and the flight attendant. When the flight attendant spoke to the airline about help with his defense, it told him he was on his own.) Luckily for both of us, this guy didn't lunge. I stood my ground in the aisle, ready to do the three-step boogie. He sat on coiled haunches, poised to spring but not quite willing to make the full commitment. He gave me one final, I'm-gonna-kill-you look, then turned to the window -- perhaps to study the intricacies of a passing cloud formation. As soon as I rejoined my serving partner, the irate passenger screamed at a volume that, I would learn later, was heard all the way to the cockpit. "YOU'RE A FUCKING ASSHOLE, YOU ASSHOLE FUCK!" Now, everybody was scared. A few passengers seated at ground zero departed for safer seats. The screaming passenger's eyes rattled in his sockets. His face grew red. Judging by his agitated state, he seemed capable of just about anything. Herein lies the problem of potentially violent airline passengers: At 30,000 feet, you can't call a cop. Nor can you throw a guy out the door like we did on a nightly basis when I worked as a bartender in New York (all I had to say was, "Yo, Rico! Eighty-six this moron!" and the customer would suddenly find himself roaming the plains of 14th Street, howling obscenities at an uncaring moon). But there is no beefy backup on an airplane, and most of us aren't up for the physical challenge. Why should we be? We're flight attendants, not Steven Seagal wannabes. I returned to the back of the plane and, using a calm, non-combative voice, I confronted the passenger again. "Sir, please try to calm down," I said. "There's no need to get upset and there's certainly no reason to use profanity." "FUCK YOU ... YOU GAY FUCK!" "Sir, I'm straight." "I DON'T GIVE A DAMN ... YOU'RE ALL FUCKED. ARRRRGGGH!!" At this point, I resorted to passenger misconduct solution No. 657. "If a male passenger exhibits hostile tendencies toward a male flight attendant, a female flight attendant may be able to intervene and defuse the anger." I turned to Donna, my diminutive blond colleague. She stepped up to the plate, dug her cleats into the batter's box and with a bravado that would make Sammy Sosa proud, took her best shot. "Sir, please ..." she said, settling her warm, motherly gaze upon him. "Can you just lower your voice a bit?" "FUCK YOU!" He lashed her with insults too degrading to repeat. But when Donna had finally had enough, she reached for the interphone and called the cockpit. "Yeah," she said. Her voice was as flat and expressionless as a veteran cop calling in her third burglary of the day. "We got a problem passenger... Coach ... 25F ... Yeah. OK." A few moments later, the flight engineer came lumbering out of the cockpit. He was a little on the stocky side, and as he moved down the aisle he tucked his shirt into his trousers and hitched up his pants more than once. Contrary to what many passengers think, flight engineers are not pilots. They are responsible for the mechanical performance of the aircraft, a demanding job in itself, but they don't actually fly the plane. In three-person cockpits, therefore, flight engineers are the expendable ones, the sacrificial lamb sent into the cabin when punches are ready to fly. As the flight engineer approached, he did not need us to point out the problem passenger. The guy was flailing and gesticulating like a madman. "Sir, what seems to be the problem?" the engineer said. "DON'T TALK TO ME, YOU FAT FUCK." "Sir, you're interfering with the duties of --" "SHUT THE HELL UP!" he said, cutting off the engineer. "YOU CAN'T TELL ME WHAT TO DO. I KNOW MY RIGHTS!" "OK, buddy. If you don't calm down right now, we're going to have you arrested in Dallas." With great emphasis, the passenger raised his middle finger and shook it in the engineer's face. "FUCK YOOOOOU." The engineer gave me a look, then lumbered back to the cockpit. It was at this juncture that I noticed the woman sitting behind the problem passenger. She was clutching her chest with one hand; her other hand trembled uncontrollably. "Excuse me, miss." I said this in a soft voice so she wouldn't jump. "Let me move you to another seat. I think there's room up front." She nodded her head like a shellshocked refugee, allowing me to move her to safer territory. Along the way, she mentioned that the passenger had been reaching in his pocket periodically and sniffing something. "He do it four, five times," she said in a sweet Guatemalan accent. Drugs. Cocaine maybe. More likely it was Special K (a liquid animal tranquilizer). No wonder he was acting so weird. I escorted the Guatemalan woman to a seat in the front section of coach. Next, I informed the lead flight attendant about the exacerbating problem in the back, obtained the troublemaker's name from the passenger information list, then went into the cockpit to relay information about possible drug use. The captain -- a supremely competent woman whom I've flown with on several occasions -- turned around and listened to my report. "That does it," she said sternly. "We'll have the police meet the flight in Dallas. Just keep an eye on him. If he gets out of hand we'll ... just keep an eye on him." "Captain," I said, "he's already out of hand." The captain nodded. Looks were exchanged. "Just keep an eye on him." I walked to the back of the airplane, which was all but deserted save for my colleague Donna and Mr. Adam Ratliff -- aka the problem passenger. He sat there talking to himself. Every few minutes he'd scream. "ARRRRGGGH ... ARRRRGGGH!!" Less than an hour later, and without further incident, we landed in Dallas-Fort Worth. As our plane taxied toward the gate, the captain spoke over the public address system. "Ladies and gentlemen," she said, "we apologize for the troublesome flight. Authorities will be meeting the aircraft to remove the passenger who caused the disruption." As soon as the "fasten seat belt" sign blinked off, all the passengers stood up -- including Ratliff, who immediately disappeared into the lavatory. A moment later, I heard the mechanized hum of the toilet flushing. Ratliff was probably dumping his drugs. Sure enough, police officers were waiting on the jet bridge. They converged upon Ratliff as soon as he stepped through the exit door. They searched his carry-on bag. I filled out a complaint. Then they hauled him away. Still, I had an issue with the captain. Her announcement had alerted Ratliff to the possibility of a drug search and he'd almost certainly taken advantage of the opportunity. When the captain emerged from the cockpit, I couldn't contain my bewilderment. "Excuse me, Captain, but why did you make that announcement? You knew he probably had drugs. As soon as you announced that the plane was being met by cops, he went into the lavatory and dumped his stash." The captain just looked at me, a blank stare frozen in her eyes. "Oh!" That was all she said. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - "Well," I said to the private investigator. "That's what happened." He switched off the tape recorder and sighed. "That must have been some flight," he said. He nodded his head as if answering his own question, then gathered his belongings and rose from his seat. "Thanks for your help," he said. "You really opened my eyes to a few things." Barnaby closed his briefcase and walked toward my front door. That's when I asked a question -- a question I should have asked at the onset of my deposition. "You mentioned that you were hired by a lawyer who is representing Mr. Ratliff. When is his trial?" "Excuse me?" "His trial? When is he being prosecuted in court?" "Trial?" "Yeah, he's being prosecuted for his actions on the airplane, right?" "Oh, hell no," he said. "Mr. Ratliff is suing your airline. We believe he was intoxicated before boarding and should never have been allowed on that airplane. Your airline is at fault." When the door shut behind him, there was only one thing I could say: "ARRRRGGGH!!" salon.com | August 17, 1999