A big well done from me! 🙂

Enjoy.

So planning or threatening to storm flight deck is ok by you?
Might wanna start an airline with that attitude. Terrorists will love it.

No-one has said that. What I have said is in these circumstances, the reaction of the passengers could be seen as justified. The key words being; “in these circumstances”.

In this situation the passengers could only be 100% sure they were safe if they took these or similar actions or had the vision of hindsight. What should they do; wait until they die and then decide they should have acted. Of course, in all probability the pilots have the situation under control and the passengers are over-reacting, BUT, mistakes happen and the only way of reassurance for these passengers was to stop the flight.

Whilst I respect some of the views mentioned here, I do think they are taken from the point of view of the expert or enthusiast with little thought for the average fearful passenger in that situation who, in their mind, is facing death!

A strange analahy but here goes:-
Imagine someone is waving a gun at your family and 400 hundred others. Do you rugby tackle the guy and de-mobilise him or do you wait and see what happens, because that is what common sense may say? Of course, when you’ve rugby tackled the guy you find he was an actor with a toy gun and ther 400 others were extras on a set? With hindsight, you wouldn’t have done it. But at the time, you thought you were saving hundreds of lives and what is the worst that has happened, filming was delayed for an hour.

GD, storming the ****-pit is wrong – clearly.

However, my view isn’t just about the passengers reactions, it is based on why they reacted like that. If you believe you are going to die and believe your actions will save you and those of 400 others, then surely storming the ****-pit is a justified response – if extreme.

This isn’t just about the crime as it were, but the motive for it and when you put the rationale to the scene, then I think what the passengers did was plausible. Its not as if the passengers have killed anyone or endangered anyone, they actively believed they were helping and were saving lives – surely this must count for something.

NWA have a good mix.

We often hear statements about NWA having one of the oldest operating passenger fleets around in western airspace. That is fact.

The other side of the coin, which is rarely mentioned, is that NWA also has one of the most modern passenger fleets in the world with a vast array of new Airbus short haul models, Boeing 757s and Airbus A330s.

So yes, they do have a high number of old aircraft, but this is heavily complimented by plenty of brand new aircraft too. You get the impression that when NWA get hold of something, they stick to the strategy and keep it for a long time.

In today’s environment, I would say NWA has got it EXACTLY right.

The names of all the passengers that caused the ruckus should be known, especially the ones that left their seats and were shouting, and subsequently be blackballed by all airlines and barred from flying ever again.

You’re entitled to your opinion GD, but I think this statement is complete rubbish. The passengers did what they thought was right, there was no malice in their actions whatsoever. You only need to read the Jet Airways thread currently running to see pilots do make mistakes.

This backs up my comments perfectly in the Phuket thread. 🙂

No-one is perfect and mistakes can happen.

Passengers generally are not well informed or semi-informed enthusiasts like us.

If a few people are adamant that they see fuel leaking from the wing immediately prior to take off and they are getting no serious response, then I think the passengers actions are explainable. If I was on that plane, I would have wanted those with their eyes open to shout and act as they did. Why? Well, if they were wrong, the worse that could happen is we’d have a delay and a few people would shout at us. If there was the slightest chance they were right (and remember, they believed they were), then mistakes by pilots do happen and their actions would have saved my life and that of 400 others.

Passengers often get a bad press on this site, and often rightly so. But for doing what they thought was truly right, and for trying to save their own lives and those of 400 others assuming the pilots had got something wrong, then I’m with the passengers, no matter how wrong they may have been with hindsight.

I never said they hadn’t.

I never said that you said you did… 😉

Merely pointing out that a split order like that isn’t that unusual of late. 🙂