Woman "locked" on board empty jet sues
 

This woman is suing United Airlines because she was left on an empty airplane after she fell asleep and was "traumatized" by the "locked doors":

Woman Sues After Being Left On Plane - Detroit Local News Story - WDIV Detroit

When did the doors of large airliners become equipped with locks?

Silly cow should have set her alarm or had a few less scoops during the flight hopefully the airline will tell her to do one.

What can she sue for; how has she been disadvantaged by this, apart from being shown to be a stupid dopey bitch?
Or rather a stupid, dopey, greedy, money-grabbing bitch?

Locked? Not on any airliner I've ever seen. Parhaps she should be sued for not paying attention to the emergency brief that would have allowed her to leave the "locked" (sic) aeroplane, had she bothered to pay attention when asked.

They don't call them self loading freight for nothing, do they?

What a plank.

Fair enough, the crew could have done a final check of the cabin before leaving, but...

What is even more worrying is that she presumably didn't decide to take a look at any one of the dozens if not hundreds of the safety cards that are on-board, which funnily enough tell you how to open the doors.

:ugh:

I suppose in mitigation she is both female and american, so lets not expect too much from her

When an aircraft is left overnight are steps or the tunnel left attached?

If she had opened the doors could she have safely left the plane?

@aviatordom

..and does the same card tell you how to descend from a door that is 7-9 m (guess) off the ground ?


I'm sure they didn't leave it connected to an air-bridge.:ugh:

As for "the crew could have done a final check of the cabin before leaving, but.. "

I don't think it's a matter of "could", I am sure that they are mandated to do so.


I hold no brief for people who take no responsibility for themselves, but I cannot see any way in which the cabin crew were not grossly negligent in their duties in overlooking a passenger on-board.

In response to the above

"@aviatordom

..and does the same card tell you how to descend from a door that is 7-9 m (guess) off the ground ? "

Yes it does if memory serves me correctly....called an escape slide?

But you can arm them from the inside!

You can arm them from inside, but the safety card doesn't tell you that or how to do it. You'd have to be a regular and observant passenger or have aviation experience to know that.

But if the slide doesn't deploy when you open the door (because it's not armed) you pull the toggle to release the slide.

The crew mentions pulling the toggle if the slide does not deploy in the safety briefing, and the cards point it out too, so there would have been little excuse if the said Woman opened the door and the slide did not deploy automatically.

If you don't listen to the safety procedures because you are distracted by looking outside, reading, sneakily listening to music or sleeping because you have a "nothing will happen to me attitude" then you have no leg to stand on if something does happen and you try and blame the Airline for what happened.

And in order to pull the toggle to manually inflate the slide, the slide has to be ARMED in the first place.

The arming of the door connects the girt bar on the slide to the brackets in the floor so that when the door is opened the slide gets pulled out of the bustle and inflates as it drops to the floor. If the slide is not armed, the girt bar won't connect to those brackets, therefore the slide will not be yanked out of the bustle and will not drop to the floor. If the slide stays inside the bustle then there is no toggle to pull.

The airline is at fault, the passenger is not at fault. The airline failed to carry out it's security procedures, the passenger should not be expected to open the door herself (in darkness as I doubt the cabin lights would have been left illuminated). And even if she had managed to arm the door, inflate the slide and get off, she isn't going to get inside the terminal easily as the aircraft may have been parked up around 1mile from the terminal building on a remote stand - and she would probably have been arrested for being a terrorist for being in the restricted zone without a hi-viz jacket and ID!

Well put, Getoutofmygalley.

When trying to appear clever at the expense of someone else, it helps to actually know what one is talking about, otherwise one just looks like someone trying to appear clever at the expense of someone else.

...Errr..what was the problem, I understand she was woken by the cleaning crew, they would have had access thru one of the rear doors, to easy!

I think her problems were related to the security people keeping her 'secured' whilst they figured out what was going on!

Cheers...FD...:\

The problem was.. not that she was physically locked in the plane, and unable to open a door... but that she was detained, on the plane, by over-zealous security staff, who gave her a hard time, and treated her like a plane hijacker.
I think I'd be talking to my lawyers, too, if some security goons in uniforms, with attitudes straight out of Nazi Germany, treated me like a criminal, when I was guilty only of falling asleep on a plane.

Must be a deep sleep if she can sleep through landing and everyone else getting their bags and getting off, must be more to it.

mcgoo - agreed. Especially as Trans-States Airlines, who operate the flight on behalf of United, use Embraer ERJ-145s on that route - at 50 seats, not the biggest aircraft you can fly in.

Reference to the debate about arming doors and slides - the 145 has a drop-down door complete with airstairs, so a moot point.

As for security - they are damned if they do and damned if they don't!

What would have been the outcry if they had just escorted the lady to the terminal and sent her on her way, then some device had later been found on the aircraft?

After all, passengers don't usually get left on parked-up aircraft - er, apart from the blind lady a week ago, who was forgotten after being asked to remain seated until the other passengers had disembarked. That was United too - but would have been a main-line A320, not a small feeder.

Well, it was the wee small hours, when people normally sleep soundest. I'd hazard a guess some booze helped. There definitely is some negligence on the cabin crews behalf, to obviously not do a thorough check of the plane, before leaving.

However .. she HAS also employed the biggest Rottweiler, in-your-face, attorney... who specialises in cases where he can get maximum media exposure. I'd say there'll be a quiet out-of-court settlement, which will also involve a new Beemer for Fiegler, the attorney... :rolleyes:

http://i49.tinypic.com/2eey7fm.jpg

"The plane landed around 12:30 a.m. but McGuire said she woke up around 4 a.m. with no flight crew attempting to wake her. She wasn’t aware that the cleaning crew had discovered her sleeping and called authorities. After pacing the airplane for 15 minutes, she was met by a TSA agent and two police officers who questioned her for 10 minutes (and who requested to sight MGuire's ID). She’s now suing Trans State Airlines, operators of the United Express flight, for “$25,000 and $75,000, on claims of negligence, infliction of emotional distress, false imprisonment and breach of contract.”

Absolutely. The lawyers will be the ones who win the most on this one.

After all, this is America. The land of the buy one, get one free!