Airplane passenger CQC case

[Jffal]

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AP Top News - 12/20/2000  
FBI: Flight Attendant Provoked Man
by ROBERT GEHRKE
Associated Press Writer
SALT LAKE CITY (AP) -- A flight attendant might have provoked an enraged Southwest Airlines passenger who was later suffocated by fellow passengers trying to control him, according to an FBI report.
Prosecutors relied partly on the report, released Tuesday, in deciding in October not to file criminal charges against the passengers who restrained 19-year-old Jonathan Burton.
The document does not include some evidence, such as autopsy photos, nor does it name other passengers on Southwest Flight 1763 from Las Vegas to Salt Lake City on Aug. 11.
In the report, witnesses said that about 15 minutes before the plane landed, Burton began pacing the aisle and gesturing.
''(He) ran up the aisle very quickly and smashed through the door to the cockpit,'' one witness said. ''He started to yell about someone needs to fly the plane because the pilot was not flying the plane.''
Other passengers tackled Burton and walked him back to his seat. He tried to leave his seat several times but was stopped by burly passengers sitting on either side.
A flight attendant ''exacerbated the situation by approaching Burton, shaking her finger in his face, and yelling at him,'' the report says.
The same attendant suggested Burton be moved away from the emergency exit. As he was changing seats, Burton swung his fists and kicked wildly, bloodying one man's face. One passenger said he was ''like a tornado.''
As many as eight men dragged Burton to the ground and stayed on top of him for several minutes until he lost consciousness.
Paramedics who met the plane found that Burton was not breathing. An autopsy showed Burton had suffocated.
Passengers speculated that Burton was on drugs, and one said that before Burton charged the cockpit, he shouted, ''It's not the drugs.''
The medical examiner's report found cocaine and marijuana in Burton's system but concluded drugs were not directly responsible for Burton's behavior or his death.
(PROFILE
(CO:Southwest Airlines; TS:LUV; IG:AIR


Why is the attendant's action considered to be provocation? The passenger was already demonstrating aberrant behavior. Any attendant who ignored the disturbance would have been remiss in his/her duty.

I wonder what would have happened if a passenger used a weapon (small knife, multitool, roll of quarters, etc) to help subdue what was a threat to them all?

Jeff

 

[iso1]

Funny how stuff gets distorted over time.

According to USA Today, an Airport officer checked the man's pulse and breathing AFTER they took him off the plane.

http://www.rgj.com/news2/stories/news/977295604.html

Paramedics who met the plane found that Burton was not breathing.

That's not what the cops said.

A passenger carried Burton over his shoulder onto the jetway. When the passenger set Burton down, his "head hit the floor."

Concerned, "I knelt down again and felt the carotid artery for a pulse," Kloer wrote. "There was a pulse and I also observed that he was breathing." Seconds later, paramedics arrived. By then, it appears, Burton could not be revived. He was pronounced dead about an hour later at a nearby hospital.

Pronounced dead an hour later means he was alive at least until he reached the hospital.

Also, the coroner did say that drugs did not seem to have caused Burton to act that way, but "the possibility can not be discounted."

 

[Sprint Sucks]

Actually, there is a difference between being dead and being pronounced dead.
You can be dead for some time until a physician examines you and determines you're dead.
Interestingly, legally you're not dead until then, but physiologically, you're as dead as you're gonna get.