Am I my brother's keeper?
This lady was seriously mentally disturbed with probably a well known illness. You had 5 years to notice this and you said, “She was obviously mentally disturbed”. This alone has serious implications for air travel. There are happy drunks and nasty drunks, but they are still drunks.
A reasonable person and particularly one with your experience should have made strong efforts to contact this ladies family or next of kin, or even the community health nurse and be a part of the solution and not part of the problem as this so predictably has become.
For many reasons I don’t feel you acted decently or responsibly and you failed miserably in your moral duty of care to this lady. You now appear to be feeling guilty and trying to justify your actions, and shame on all you Ppruners who have been sucked into this view.
I guess it’s her and her families problem now, plus the government of two countries, various medical institutions, maybe insurance companies and lawyers, airlines, security, embassies, immigration etc. etc. etc. All in all a hugh problem with lots of heartache that a little individual responsibility earlier on could have avoided.
Maybe some lessons here for us all in matters of security and being our brother’s keeper
bp