The reason you’re not allowed to use electronic devices on a plane during take off and landing isn’t because planes aren’t iPad proof, but because that’s when most accidents happen, and you may need to quickly focus on emergency instructions. If the air bag drops down, and you take your headphones out and yell, “what the hell is this thing”, the flight attendant is probably just gonna flip you off, and rightfully so.
But apparently this is all news to Alec Baldwin, who got kicked off an American Airlines flight from LA to New York yesterday. He tweeted…
“Flight attendant on American reamed me out 4 playing WORDS W FRIENDS while we sat at the gate, not moving.”
If it seems unreasonable to kick someone off a plane for quietly playing a game while parked at the gate, thats because it is, and because that’s not what happened. He left out the part where they were actually on the runway ready to take off and that he locked himself in the bathroom, screaming at everyone and pounding on the walls. The New York Post says…
“Apparently he said he was playing a game, but he was actually talking on the phone. She [the flight attendant] was very nice. The door was closed they just announced that they were pulling away from the gate. He got up threw his papers on the floor stormed into the bathroom slammed the door closed, beat on the wall and then came back.”
“He said ‘If you want to kick me off, kick me off.’ He was just crazy, he just flipped out, the guy has problems.”
A crew member who dealt with (Baldwin) said he couldn’t stay on the flight.
“He was violent, abusive and aggressive. He got into the bathroom and started beating on the wall and he pounded his fists on the galley counter. Yelling, screaming, very ugly. It was unsafe to keep him on board that’s why he got kicked out.”
The crew member did not want to give her name, but said she asked him five times to get off his phone.
“He was asked five times. I contacted the captain. We were brought back in and he was let off the plane.”
I like the phrase “thrown off a flight” because I picture a plane at 30,000 feet with the door open and two of the pilots each holding one of Baldwins arms and legs, swinging him back then flinging him out into the clouds. And then one of the pilots looks back into the cabin, gestures toward the open door and says, “no ticket”, like Indiana Jones did in ‘Last Crusade’, and then everyone would laugh because it’s a pretty good joke. The imaginary pilot I just made up has impeccable comic timing.
