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Hawaiian Airlines HA 459 HNL-ICN inflight turnback (over Midway Island) unruly pax

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Hawaiian Airlines HA 459 HNL-ICN inflight turnback (over Midway Island) unruly pax

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Old 2nd Mar 2019, 05:42
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Red face Hawaiian Airlines HA 459 HNL-ICN inflight turnback (over Midway Island) unruly pax

Wednesday 27 Feb 2019, Airbus A330-200 278 seats (3 class configuration) with 263 total passengers onboard, 4 hours into 11:20 duration flight HA459 inflight turnback, passenger had previously been denied entry to USA and was held at federal detention center until return flight, passenger was allowed to buy then consume bottle of duty-free whiskey on return flight HNL-ICN, after emptying contents of whiskey bottle unruly passenger began bothering child sitting next to him, when cabin crew intervened unruly passenger began yelling and tried to punch cabin crew member, unruly passenger was hand cuffed, at point of turnback HA459 was in vicinity of Midway Island well known ETOPS (EDTO) enroute diversion alternate.

Questions:

1) Why not land at Midway to drop off unruly passenger? (Later fly him MDY-HNL for further processing?)
2) If unruly passenger handcuffed then why not further restrain him to his seat so that flight could continue to ICN S. Korea?
3) Why was this passenger, who had been denied entry to the USA, allowed to purchase duty-free alcohol?
4) Why was this passenger allowed to fly ICN-HNL only to be denied entry, why couldn't security pick this up at ICN previously?
5) How was this passenger able to empty the contents of his duty-free whiskey bottle undetected? No doubt he likes it straight up not on the rocks...........................
6) If this passenger had a previous history which forbade him to enter the USA was the flight crew (cockpit/cabin) made aware of the reason for this decision by the authorities?
7) Why was this man allowed to sit next to a vulnerable child?

My kudos to the cabin crew who took this man to task once he over stepped the mark and started harassing the poor child unfortunately sitting next to him.

Passenger accused of trying to punch flight attendant remains in custody
https://www.foxnews.com/travel/hawai...became-violent
https://www.khon2.com/news/local-new...urt/1819531018
https://mauinow.com/2019/02/28/fbi-a...rlines-flight/

HONOLULU (KHON2) - The man facing federal charges after a Hawaiian Airlines flight was forced to turn around Wednesday night made his first federal court appearance Thursday afternoon.

Flight 459 bound for Korea returned to Honolulu around 8:30 p.m. Wednesday.

Court documents show "Kyoun Kim" did not have the proper credentials to be in the country so he had to return to Korea.

According to the documents a duty-free worker delivered a bottle of whiskey to Kim on the plane.

The documents go on to show that Kim drank the whole bottle and then started to bother a child sitting next to him.

A flight attendant tried to intervene, and Kim began yelling.

Kim was eventually handcuffed, and the flight returned to Honolulu where he was taken in to custody for interfering with a flight crew.

Aloha Baby

Dog Star is offline  
Old 2nd Mar 2019, 05:48
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If you drop into PMDY to drop off the unruly pax, the rest of the punters are not going to enjoy the enforced stay standing around on gooney bird guano. You get to fly out when the NPWS gets around to giving you gas, whenever that may be. Hotels are in short supply, as is gas most of the year.
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Old 2nd Mar 2019, 20:38
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Its a paperwork ETOPS emergency field. Not somewhere you want to go unless its a crap hits the fan event.
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Old 3rd Mar 2019, 01:17
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Because of all of the birds flying around, I think Midway also has a strict limit on the hours of the day (or night) when voluntary takeoffs/landings are allowed to occur. Unless HA dropped in at just the right time, it could be 12+ hours before they would be allowed to depart.
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Old 4th Mar 2019, 00:27
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The documents go on to show that Kim drank the whole bottle...
How was he still conscious?
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Old 4th Mar 2019, 09:10
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themonsoonproject.org/2016/10/10/a-sobering-look-at-south-koreas-drinking-culture/
"The Journal of Korean Medical Science reports that every night about 6 million South Koreans drink 9.53 million bottles of beer and 8.97 million bottles of soju (a distilled Korean liquor with about 20% alcohol). According to the same paper, the World Health Organisation found in 2010 that Korea has the highest prevalence of alcohol abuse and dependence at 6.76 per cent of the population."
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Old 4th Mar 2019, 13:40
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Originally Posted by Dog Star

Questions:

1) Why not land at Midway to drop off unruly passenger? (Later fly him MDY-HNL for further processing?)
And who would baby sit our whisky loving comrade- some fish and wildlife service biologist? Midway has a very small contingent of folks.

As tempting as it would be to dump his ass on the tarmac, I don't think that is an option.

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Old 4th Mar 2019, 15:37
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Midway runway also may have been a bit restrictive for continuing on to ICN, Only 7800ft with some weight restrictions. Don't know much about A330 takeoff performance, but 7800 just may be a bit short. Crew duty limits would have most likely forced at least a crew rest period. Take it back to HNL, best idea.
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Old 4th Mar 2019, 16:41
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Cause Hawaiian Airlines owns the plane and they have the final saying how to deal with situation?
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Old 5th Mar 2019, 08:19
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With regards to questions 4, 6 and 7...

4. Assuming he is a South Korean citizen, they don't need a visa to enter the USA, only an ESTA. The passenger likely had all the correct paperwork and was refused at the point of entry for whatever reason. That's not something the airline taking him to the USA could know would happen so they woikd have had no grounds to deny him travel.

6/7 If he was being processed as an INAD (inadmissible) or a DEPU (Deportee unescorted) then the crew would have known about it and would have likely been in possession of his paperwork until arrival in ICN. Regulations vary from carrier to carrier but if he was either of those I'm surprised he was sat next to a child. In my experience (in the UK so USA may differ) such passengers are seated alone, at the back, where the crew can easily keep an eye on them. These people are usually escorted to the plane meaning any chance of buying duty free is slim. In the event of a full flight they would only be sat next to other adults.

It seems like he wasn't handled as either of those and was just simply told to leave the country. He was apparently allowed to board himself and make his own way to the plane. That would explain the duty free purchase and sitting next to a kid anyway. Unless standard procedure in the USA is different.
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Old 6th Mar 2019, 05:49
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6/7 If the passenger voluntarily withdrew his application to the USA he could have been free to move about the airport, as he is not being denied entry to the USA or being deported. He just didn't want to enter. It is not unknown for people to be quietly advised to withdraw their application to enter the USA because they will not be admitted and it will help them to avoid having to apply for a visa due to a past refusal.

In that case, he would be just another passenger to the crew on his return flight, and you can't have some sort of cordon sanitaire around children as if all adults are a danger to them; that's ridiculous. There is also no common on where the child's parents were, perhaps they were the other side of the child.
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Old 9th Jul 2019, 11:23
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Old story, but worth reading the penalty: https://www.airlive.net/drunk-hawaii...gency-landing/
A man whose behavior on a Hawaiian Airlines flight to South Korea forced it to return to Honolulu has been ordered to pay the air carrier more than $172,000.

Kyong Chol Kim was sentenced Wednesday to six months in jail for interfering with flight attendants and crew members on the flight in February.
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