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American Airlines Flight Attendant sets fire in aircraft restroom

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American Airlines Flight Attendant sets fire in aircraft restroom

Old 3rd Mar 2016, 06:01
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American Airlines Flight Attendant sets fire in aircraft restroom

FBI: Flight attendant set bathroom on fire on Detroit-bound plane
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Old 3rd Mar 2016, 10:45
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The same thing happened to a European airline a few years ago. A steward set fire to paper towels in a toilet, raised the alarm and put the fire out with a fire extinguisher. He so enjoyed the praise and adulation he got from being a hero that he "discovered" another toilet fire a few months later. To his surprise and disappointment he was not regarded as a hero the second time and was prosecuted for endangering a plane and was sacked.
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Old 3rd Mar 2016, 11:12
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Originally Posted by draglift
The same thing happened to a European airline a few years ago. A steward set fire to paper towels in a toilet, raised the alarm and put the fire out with a fire extinguisher. He so enjoyed the praise and adulation he got from being a hero that he "discovered" another toilet fire a few months later. To his surprise and disappointment he was not regarded as a hero the second time and was prosecuted for endangering a plane and was sacked.
Here in Australia, we rely on volunteer fire-fighters, particularly in rural or semi-rural areas.

Every year, we experience exactly the same phenomenon: a tiny percentage of volunteers deliberately start fires which they then heroically fight to subsequent applause and free beer.

Then it happens again...and again.

Sad individuals.

Dean
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Old 3rd Mar 2016, 11:20
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Psychos...

...it's impossible to stop them...the ones that set fire on acft, the ones that fly their acft into the mountains, the ones that shoot their classmates and so on...
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Old 3rd Mar 2016, 11:51
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That guy may be a psycho, but he was fully qualified to baby-sit me when my collegue goes to the loo.
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Old 3rd Mar 2016, 15:53
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Originally Posted by deanm
Every year, we experience exactly the same phenomenon: a tiny percentage of volunteers deliberately start fires which they then heroically fight to subsequent applause and free beer.
We had something similar here in Colorado in 2002: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hayman_Fire
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Old 3rd Mar 2016, 16:56
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Re- arrange 'reaction jerk and knee'
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Old 3rd Mar 2016, 17:47
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Unfortunately indeed a familiar story. Some of these folks are serial offenders it seems.

Turhan Jamarius Lamons (he apparently is a con artist with several aka's according to court documents) did the phony bomb threat while working as a flight attendant on AirTran in 2001. He got fired and got another F/A job with Comair. There he set a fire in the lav:

Lamons was sentenced in 2006 in U.S. District Court in Rome, Ga. on charges of intimidation of a flight crew by use of fire, damaging an aircraft by fire, use of fire in the commission of a felony crime and giving false information concerning the destruction of an aircraft.

According to the information presented in court, on the evening of May 8, 2003, Lamons, who was working as the sole flight attendant on Comair flight 5491 from Atlanta to Huntsville, Alabama, set a fire in the lavatory of the aircraft. When Lamons reported to the Captain that there was smoke of unknown origin in the lavatory, the Canadair Regional jet was forced to make an emergency landing at Rome’s Richard B. Russell Regional Airport about twenty minutes after takeoff.

Suspicion focused on Lamons after the Rome Fire Marshal, Vann Baxter concluded that the fire was set deliberately and the investigation showed that he was the only person who entered the lavatory during the brief flight. Lamons also had made numerous conflicting statements about the fire and his involvement with it. The case was investigated by the Floyd County Police and Special Agents of the FBI.

Prior to the above charges, Lamons was convicted in March of 2005 of calling in a bomb threat in September of 2001. In that conviction, Lamons was charged with maliciously conveying false information concerning an attempt to damage a civil aircraft and committing an act of violence against aircraft passengers.

Those charges stemmed from a call he made to AirTran Airways at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport. The false information conveyed was that “Everyone on board flight 278 is going to die.” Although Lamon was convicted in those charges, he had not been sentenced in court due to delays.
Airline terrorist now being housed at Polk County jail in Cedartown, Ga. | Examiner.com

Another possible 'serial hero' case of a flight attendant setting a fire in the lav from 2008:

A flight attendant who started a fire on an aircraft mid-flight just so he could 'play the hero' by putting it out has been jailed for more than six years.

Eder Rojas, 23, risked the lives of 72 passengers and four crew members, when he set fire to paper towels in the plane's rear bathroom while he was working on the Compass Airlines flight.

Investigators accused Rojas, of Woodbury, Minnesota, of starting the fire because he was unhappy about working the route from Minneapolis to Regina, Saskatchewan.

Prosecutors said about five weeks before the Compass flight incident in May 2008, Rojas was aboard another flight that was forced to make an emergency landing in Wisconsin because of a bathroom fire.

Rojas allegedly helped put out the fire. No charges have been filed in that case.
Flight attendant jailed for setting fire to an aircraft so he could 'put it out and play the hero' | Daily Mail Online

Keeping folks with a bad past from working on the plane is not as simple as it sounds from what I see.

In the U.S. airlines are now very skittish about releasing information about former employees, even those terminated for cause under the most egregious circumstances. Often someone is allowed to 'resign' to avoid further litigation in a very few recent cases that I am aware of anecdotally.

And, airline worker background investigations seem to be pursued less vigorously in the wake of a 2013 EEOC lawsuit claiming that background checks may have been used as a form of discrimination against groups more likely to have felony convictions:

EEOC Files Suit Against Two Employers for Use of Criminal Background Checks

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Old 4th Mar 2016, 10:26
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That guy may be a psycho, but he was fully qualified to baby-sit me when my collegue goes to the loo.
There're not baby-sitting you. They are there to operate the door. Get over it!
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Old 4th Mar 2016, 13:45
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Here's yet another recent repeat inflight bomb threat discoverer:

Ex-SkyWest flight attendant accused of two bomb threats

By Mayra Cuevas

Updated 12:22 PM ET, Wed September 16, 2015

(CNN)—A former SkyWest flight attendant admitted he fabricated two bomb threats that resulted in emergency landings in North Dakota and Virginia, according to court documents released this week.

On September 9, while working aboard Delta flight 4770 traveling from Minneapolis, Minnesota, to Dickinson, North Dakota, flight attendant Justin Cox-Sever said he found "a suspicious bag on board that was 'beeping,'" according to the affidavit.

Cox-Sever notified the flight deck. An announcement was made asking passengers if they recognized the bag, but no one did. Cox-Sever then told the flight deck he could hear "beeping" inside the bag. "At that time, the captain declared a Level 3 emergency, notified air traffic control, and prepared for an emergency landing," said the affidavit.

All commercial traffic in the Dickinson Roosevelt Regional Airport was shut down. But when police and the bomb squad investigated the contents of the bag, they found only rolled up towels.

On July 7, 2015, Cox-Sever had been on American Airlines Flight 2928 traveling from Charlottesville, Virginia, to Chicago. "During that flight, Cox-Sever discovered a written threat on the wall of the lavatory stating a bomb was on the plane," said the affidavit. "The flight was diverted back to Charlottesville and no explosives were found on the plane. Cox-Sever had pictures of this incident on his cell phone and stated he received positive feedback from his employer for his handling of the incident."

The FBI agent heading the investigation, Daniel Genck, said Cox-Sever confessed to planting the bag inside the Delta plane and also to fabricating the note on the American Airlines flight.
Ex-SkyWest flight attendant accused of two bomb threats - CNN.com

Sounds like maybe these were codeshare flights operated by SkyWest.

Originally Posted by draglift
The same thing happened to a European airline a few years ago. A steward set fire to paper towels in a toilet, raised the alarm and put the fire out with a fire extinguisher. He so enjoyed the praise and adulation he got from being a hero that he "discovered" another toilet fire a few months later. To his surprise and disappointment he was not regarded as a hero the second time and was prosecuted for endangering a plane and was sacked.
It almost seems like these men keep trying until they are caught. Of course, the only ones we know about are the ones that are caught so maybe that's not really a useful observation. But, each of these news reports cites repeat offenders with the phony inflight fires and bomb threats.
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Old 5th Mar 2016, 01:23
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This is what happens when a culture of hero worship encounters an individual with narcissistic personality disorder.
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