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Comment by danielvf | Hacker News Reader

It's clear from the story that neither the stewardess, the pilot, nor the law enforcement agent thought he was an actual threat.

I'm guessing that there is a rule that if a passenger reports a suspicious person, then the plane must be held and law enforcement must be notified. Fortunately, at that point common sense was allowed to take over, rather than spiraling into multiple agencies mindlessly following bad procedures.

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Perhaps you wrote this before American Airlines added more details to the article, but: none of the aircraft crew were aware of what was going on when the plane returned to the gate. The woman in the seat next to the victim lied to the air staff and said she was sick, and only when she had got off the plane did she make her accusation.

The law enforcement agent quickly cleared it up after arriving.

Looks like all the staff here did the best they reasonably could do with the information they were given.

I guess it's possible, but that sounds fishy. Why would they delay the plane for a passenger who feels sick? Either you feel fine and you fly, or you don't and you get off the plane. You would never delay a train or a bus for that reason.

If the plane is still on the ground and a passenger says they are too sick to fly, the plane goes back to the gate to let them get off the plane. That's normal.

A passenger said they were too sick to fly, so the plane went back to the gate. When it reached the gate, the passenger changed their story and things got more complicated.

I see. I think I misunderstood the timeline.

This sucks, they should send one of the bluthes out to pick you up on the stair car.

Also, imagine if you complained that your stomach was hurting and you had to get off the plane. If they didn't turn around on the tarmac and then your appendix bursts or something then you or your next of kin owns an airline when the lawsuit is over.

It's usually up to the discretion of the stewardess. NPR recently had a great piece on this.

http://www.npr.org/2016/04/23/475388651/when-it-comes-to-fli...

> It's clear from the story that neither the stewardess, the pilot, nor the law enforcement agent thought he was an actual threat.

I don't see that. Could you point out what makes you say that?

"The pilot seemed to be embarrassed" and "security deemed him to not be a 'credible threat'" were the parts that stood out to me.

The former, and AFAICT the latter, occurred only after he was interviewed and showed them his document with the mathematics on it.

Sure, but you'd imagine that if security personnel are called in, they are expected to spend at least a few minutes noting down what occurred in the incident. "They looked at the paper he was writing on" is very different from "interrogated him in a back room."

IIRC the story says he was taken off the plane, interviewed, and only after that did they look at the document.

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