SWA Diversion - new airline rule?

Half Fast

Half Fast

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Apparently there's a new rule about praying on a plane, or at least praying out loud.

avbrief.com

Passenger 'Praying Out Loud in a Foreign Language' Prompts Diversion - AvBrief.com

Southwest flight diverted to Atlanta after behavior alarmed passengers and crew.
avbrief.com avbrief.com

Passengers aboard a Southwest Airlines flight from Nashville to Fort Lauderdale ended up in a holding area at Atlanta Airport with their “heads down and hands over your heads” as a heavily armed police tactical squad rushed down the aisle to briskly remove a passenger who had been “praying out loud in a foreign language”​

See? This is why the placard on my panel very explicitly calls for silent prayer:
1773068510597.png​
 
I certainly understand the crew's reaction, but this one is made to order for the lawyers. I suspect SWA will just write the guy a very large check and make it all go away.
 
It wasn't the praying, it was the use of a phone that issues "alarm tones"

Maybe it was confusing the crew?
 
Bob Noel said:
It wasn't the praying, it was the use of a phone that issues "alarm tones"

Maybe it was confusing the crew?
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So the phone was alarmed by his praying?

I certainly understand the fear his behavior would induce. We do live in interesting times.
 
Once I had to pick up 2 nuns out of a small village. The runway was 1 way in, 1 way out. That is land towards the mountain and take off away from the mountain.

It was really windy that day, and to take off into the wind would be towards the mountain.

As we got into the plane, and after I did the safety briefing, one of the nuns asked if it would be Ok to pray.

I told her ''it sure as h*ll ain't gonna hurt.!!''
 
I would support this treatment for anyone not using headphones/earbuds to listen to their "content"
 
I still retain a considerable amount of Latin from being in the choir back in high school. Will have to test to see if "Flying While Catholic" is still an arrestable offense....

Ron Wanttaja
 
I am glad they did not have this rule in high school.

I never would have been able to get through finals week.

And many of my classmates, especially in Chem and Physics, would be in federal detention right now.
 
wanttaja said:
I still retain a considerable amount of Latin from being in the choir back in high school. Will have to test to see if "Flying While Catholic" is still an arrestable offense....

Ron Wanttaja
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Oh, a Gregorian chant would be wonderful. Let us know how it pans out, assuming your cellblock has wifi.

I took Latin in high school, but have long since forgotten almost all of it.
 
Zeldman said:
...one of the nuns asked if it would be Ok to pray.

I told her ''it sure as h*ll ain't gonna hurt.!!''
Click to expand...
If the passenger who was escorted off the SWA plane had a similar exchange with his seatmates before he started praying, his seatmates were apparently wrong....
 
Fly Turkish Airlines or any Mid East Airline and you might be surprised the first time a mini prayer rug rolls out in the isle after asking the flight attendant the direction of Mecca…
 
Warlock said:
Fly Turkish Airlines or any Mid East Airline and you might be surprised the first time a mini prayer rug rolls out in the isle after asking the flight attendant the direction of Mecca…
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And then the pilot gets a hold...
 
bflynn said:
And then the pilot gets a hold...
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Years ago I was involved into a VIP build for a head of state from that part of the world.
The moving map had to have a Mecca pointer, and there was a switch at the VIP seat that would light up a "HOLD HDG" annunciator on the instrument panel.
 
@Half Fast , here's what will really make you groan: they requested that every bit of exposed metal in the cabin be gold plated. That included everything in the lav as well, sink and toilet bowl included.
 
AV8R_87 said:
@Half Fast , here's what will really make you groan: they requested that every bit of exposed metal in the cabin be gold plated. That included everything in the lav as well, sink and toilet bowl included.
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Holy W&B! How much weight did the gold add? And how well did that work on the seatbelt buckles?
 
Half Fast said:
I took Latin in high school, but have long since forgotten almost all of it.
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Oh, that's the advantage of choir vs. formal Latin classes. We had to accept the teacher's pronunciation, but other than that it was rote memorizing. Vivaldi's "Gloria," Schubert's "Mass in G". Can still get about halfway through the Vivaldi before my memory fades.

Ron Wanttaja
 
Half Fast said:
How much weight did the gold add? And how well did that work on the seatbelt buckles?
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Not as much as you'd think. High wear items were spec'd as thick platings (I forgot the exact thickness, but I think it was 5 microns), with a base plating of nickel. Don't think the plating company used more than a couple ounces of gold.
I saw that aircraft a couple years after it was delivered - the platings still looked good, even on the buckles. There were some scuff marks, but nothing worn through. Their biggest complaint was that condensation was forming on the metal-plated ventilation gaspers and water was dripping on the VIPs.
 
Warlock said:
Fly Turkish Airlines or any Mid East Airline and you might be surprised the first time a mini prayer rug rolls out in the isle after asking the flight attendant the direction of Mecca…
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This includes El Al. Except they gather in a group of 10 or more and ask the direction for Jerusalem.
 
Southwest Airlines released a statement reading, "The Southwest Airlines Crew of Flight 2094 on Friday made the decision to divert to Atlanta out of an abundance of caution due to what turned out to be a misunderstanding of a Customer’s behavior. We sincerely apologize to our Customers for the misunderstanding and the significant delay. Nothing is more important to Southwest than the Safety of our Customers and Employees."
 
Hi, I’m an idiot. BUT, your safety is my first priority, so we’re good, right? Whew…

Sounds a little like the faa…

For anyone who wants to visit my (DANGEROUS) shop, your safety isn’t MY first concern… that’s on you, please be careful. Don’t rely on me carrying insurance (or having assets) that will compensate you for your inattention TO YOUR OWN safety.
 
If this runs afoul of POA rules, MODs, please delete.

One of the news stories mentioned that the passenger in question had his prayer alarm go off on his phone. IF that was the case it could well have been "allahu akbar" repeated several times. I could see that creating a bit of a panic from other passengers, particularly if the person got up or moved right after it went off.

Not saying it's right, but I suspect that might have precipitated the incident. On the one hand, he has the right to practice his religion, on the other hand doing it a bit more quietly might have been prudent at a time of heightened security concerns.
 
Hang 4 said:
One of the news stories mentioned that the passenger in question had his prayer alarm go off on his phone.
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Yeah, I think there were a few things that, taken together, created a false impression in the other passengers and crew who were not familiar with the particular practices of his faith.

The alarm, his prayers, and an earlier concern over the location of his luggage. All together, someone might think that the alarm was an triggering device for a bomb in his luggage.

I don't think that the passenger did anything wrong, only that his innocent actions, which are relatively unfamiliar to most Americans, resulted in the misunderstanding.
 
The original news story I saw said he had been nervous about his bag in the overhead and asked the flight attendant about it more than once. Then his phone alarm started going off every ten minutes, maybe he kept snoozing it. Then he began his prayers, which to others may sound like a chant in a foreign language they don't understand. While none of this on its own is wrong or illegal, all of it together, combined with current global tension, likely led to misunderstanding and unintentional discrimination.
 
Let us remember the guy who was reported on a flight from PHL to SYR because a passenger saw him scribbling suspicious-looking stuff in his notepad.

Turns out he belonged to the cult of Al-Gebra.
 
AV8R_87 said:
Let us remember the guy who was reported on a flight from PHL to SYR because a passenger saw him scribbling suspicious-looking stuff in his notepad.

Turns out he belonged to the cult of Al-Gebra.
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I believe he was found in possession of a ruler and a protractor, and was charged with having weapons of math instruction.
 
Half Fast said:
I believe he was found in possession of a ruler and a protractor, and was charged with having weapons of math instruction.
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In perhaps my crowning high school achievement, I once leveraged Single Electron Theory to avoid a deserved demerit (although, by not reprimanding me, he may have sealed his fate as a high school chemistry teacher).
 
AZEL said:
In perhaps my crowning high school achievement, I once leveraged Single Electron Theory to avoid a deserved demerit (although, by not reprimanding me, he may have sealed his fate as a high school chemistry teacher).
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Did that make you a free radical? :)

(for the pedants, not the same as single electron theory)
 
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Eh, it’s the oldest amendment, we probably don’t need it anymore anyway.
 
Cap'n Jack said:
Teledyne was probably more fun to work at than it is now.:frown:
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All of them were. They worked hard and played hard. Umac came up with the 606 Infernal Anode Phantasatron, Signetics gave us the 25120 Write-Only Memory and National Semiconductor came up with the LM0901A1411090451C "Macropower, low performance, degraded circuit operational amplifier". That datasheet included performance graphs like the one below.
1773270762595.png
 
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