Loslyf reader gets a kick in the nuts
Pilot didn't appreciate man's 'bad attitude'
By Estelle Ellis
It was not the pornography but the aggressive behaviour and the swearing that made the pilot of a Nationwide flight decide to put a passenger, barred from reading a Loslyf, off his plane.
"It was my decision. I had him put off the plane," Captain Patrick Gericke said on Wednesday.
Gericke said he would have failed in his goal to ensure the safety of his passengers if he allowed a passenger who displayed aggressive and unpredictable behaviour on a plane.
"He can say that he bought the Loslyf at the airport. It means nothing. I can buy a pack of cigarettes at the airport - that does not mean I can smoke 20 (or any) of them on the flight to Cape Town."
'He can say that he bought the Loslyf at the airport'
He said the passenger, AC Hoffman, had
boarded the plane, sat down and started reading the magazine.
"One of my flight attendants explained to him that we were a family airline and in a tight environment and asked him to put the magazine away. He refused. It is a Loslyf, for goodness sake. It is really graphic porn. It is not like Scope in the old days," Gericke said.
"She informed me that he refused to put the magazine away. I asked Hoffman to obey the crew member. I informed him that he would otherwise be put off the flight.
"At this stage he stood up, chucked the magazine at the flight attendant and said take your s**t and **** off."
It was at this point, Gericke explained, that the matter had shifted from uncomfortable to problematic. "Then I had to deal with aggressive behaviour towards a crew member. There were 111 other passengers on that plane. All they wanted to do is get to Cape Town."
He said he had then turned back to the parking bay and had Hoffman put off the plane.
"I don't know the man from a bar of soap, but the moment he swore at one of my crew members, that was it."
This article was originally published on page 7 of The Cape Argus on April 07, 2005
Published on the Web by IOL on 2005-04-07 10:27:00