Craig Tornberg, general manager of the New England Revolution Major League Soccer team, shows a bottle of champagne, a gift from a flight attendant, as he describes the scene aboard an American Airlines flight, en route from Boston to Los Angeles, when a man emerged, naked, from a lavatory and had to be subdued by him and other team members, upon arrival at Los Angeles International Airport Friday, July 18, 2008. (AP Photo/Reed Saxon)
It seems that we have been averaging about one crazy passenger a week lately. And those are just the ones who make it into the press!
You typically read about the in-flight drunkards, angry folks, and people with out-of-control children. But I can’t remember the last time we had a ‘misbehaving nudist’ story.
The AP reports that an American Airlines flight from Boston to Los Angeles was diverted to Oklahoma City yesterday after a passenger emerged from the bathroom naked. He then tried to open an emergency exit door before being subdued by other passengers, specifically the members (no pun intended) of a professional soccer team.
Members of the New England Revolution of Major League Soccer (and others on the plane) saw the erratic passenger near an exit door, grabbed him, and placed tie wraps on the man.
American Flight 725, a Boeing 757, arrived in Oklahoma City at 1:35 p.m. CDT, and said nudist was taken into custody in Oklahoma City and placed under psychiatric evaluation.
The Open Piehole 
that was my plane :]
Thanks for commenting Ed.
I wonder what our world would be like if we all tried using more compassion? Like maybe ask or find out what’s wrong with someone before we contemn, judge, or kill them.
I think it’s pretty clear the poor fellow was suffering from disease — diabetews, temporal lobe epilepsy, or just hypoxia from altitude sickness (I once witnessed altitude sickness on a Greyhound Bus in Wyoming — 8,000 feet is high enough to trigger it, and a pressurized airplane is equal to about 10,000 feet).
In any case, it’s very difficult to get a door open on a pressurized airplane in flight, at altitude. Look at the doors next time you get a chance. They are several inches thick, and they are tapered, like corks, to fit so that the seal of the door is increased by the pressurization of the airplane. In other words, the air pressure pushes on the door to keep it closed and the door is fitted so it can’t be removed in flight. (Forget what you’ve seen on James Bond movies.)
Sure, there is danger. Sure, the soccer team deserve champagne. But you might be the next person we read about. These episodes may be predictable to a degree (a person who has a history of diabetic episodes, for example), but just as often they occur to otherwise healthy people with no history of such behavior.
It’s impossible to keep crazy people from boarding aircraft — most Republican delegates to the convention in Denver will fly there, for example — but crazies aren’t always the victims of these mental diseases, always.
Subdue the guy, get him treatment. If it’s criminal, let the feds deal with it.
More dangerous are the idiot passengers who get a beer or two, or none, and get violent to the flight attendants over imagined slights or some slip in service. Those incidents generally don’t much threaten others, either.
Compassion here, not vengeance.
It seems really hard to stop crazy people to get on board a plane since we don’t have a mental/psycho checkup prior to flight departure.
Whatever the cause that brought this grown-up snowflake to remove all his clothes and try to exit the plane (at altitude) might have been, in the moment, it didn’t really matter as many others were put in severe danger. Cops would have shot him, given the chance, when a simple net would have done the trick.
This actually sounds like the man who stripped naked and tried to open the emergency doors of the plane was may be suffering from Temporal Lobe Epilepsy and be experiencing a complex focal seizure. People having a complex focal seizure may display strange, repetitious behaviors such as blinks, twitches, mouth movements, or even walking in a circle. These repetitious movements are called automatisms. More complicated actions, which may seem purposeful, can also occur involuntarily. Patients may also continue activities they started before the seizure began, such as washing dishes in a repetitive, unproductive fashion.
The soccer team should have a new name like the “nadtastics” or “airbourne nudists” the streaks the go-nads maybe “mile-high soccer balls”
Wow, good thing Naomi Campbell wasn’t on that flight.
well i heard people go crazy at times i think its one of such examples
Nice post , i really appreciate ur judgement . keep posting. How you get these minute details into ur post . Do tell me . do visit mine http://fearfactor.xaapa.com/
Airliners should have airlocks to allow drunks to exit the aircraft without inconveniencing the rest of the passengers.
But they can’t.
Thanks for nothing, D.B. Cooper!
It’s possible the man was a diabetic whose blood sugar was too low. I have a relative who strips naked whenever he descends into diabetic shock; he also loses the ability to make decisions or complete a thought/sentence, and then has no memory of what he’s done once his blood sugar goes back up (usually after we feed him a few candy bars).
eh, i would have just found i nice lavatory, or better yet, cramped supply closet to stow him in for the duration of the flight.
I’ve got five bucks that says they couldn’t find a damn blanket to cover him up after they subdued him.
Whats with the picture here?!?
Not actually a good idea to shoot someone in an airplane. Not to mention air marshals are the only ones supposed to have guns.
Actually, getting tackled by a soccer team and tied up in zap straps is about as good as it could possibly get. I suggest all soccer teams willing to tackle naked passengers fly for free.
Or at least get double air miles. Who’s with me?
Eat his nads? No way, here you go Mr. Zimmerman!
What a fucked up piece of shit. Shoot him and eat his nads.