EWR Terminal evacuated Monday by Alaskan FA

[b1lanc]

Sorry if this is old news, but this could have gotten very ugly with a couple hundred pax on the tarmac because of an FA yelling for pax to evacuate the terminal. Raises a question on bi-polar disorder (if the reports are accurate) and ability to perform flight duties even in the cabin.

https://www.foxnews.com/travel/newark-airport-panic-racial-profiling-claims

[Airbubba]

I'm not so sure that the employee who called for the evacuation was a flight attendant but perhaps she is indeed flying while ill with bipolar disorder.

From one of the media updates:

Officers were seen rushing towards an Alaska Airlines gate at around 8:30 p.m. after a flight attendant started shouting for everyone to evacuate after speaking to two men at Gate 30 and then accusing them of plotting some kind of violence.

Panic ensued.

“She started screaming ‘Evacuate! Evacuate! Evacuate!’ Everyone just took off in a mad scramble. Everyone was running. People were crying. They left their luggage,” passenger Diane Park told CBS2’s Matt Kozar.

Sources told CBS2’s Tony Aiello on Tuesday the flight attendant is bipolar and had an issue with her medication. Prosecutors said for that reason she would not be charged.



https://newyork.cbslocal.com/2019/09/03/sources-monday-nights-incident-at-newark-airport-touched-off-by-bipolar-airline-employee/

She may be able to claim that the airline must accommodate her disability by moving her to a position with less stress and less contact with the public.

I've had pilot colleagues who were diagnosed with depression and grounded for two years (which curiously coincided exactly with the time limit of the disability benefits) and then went back to work with minimum fanfare. Since the depression was identified as postpartum after childbirth, the FAA, the company and the union raised few questions.

How long before the airline and EWR terminal are sued by the pax of Chinese origin for the alleged racial profiling?

[OldnGrounded]

How long before the airline and EWR terminal are sued by the pax of Chinese origin for the alleged racial profiling?

If the questions and comments directed at the two pax by the FA (or whatever she is) are reported accurately, they might be entirely justified in suspecting some sort of inappropriate profiling.

Wouldn't you agree?