Respect Authority

So how do you handle inebriated and unruly passengers 35,000 feet in the air? That’s right, you tape them to their seats.

An airline crew on a flight from Puerto Rico to Chicago used duct tape to keep a drunk lady in her seat after the woman became aggressive, smacking a flight attendant on the ass, grabbing fellow passengers, and ultimately forcing the flight to land early in North Carolina. Although she calmed down after being restrained (I imagine with duct tape attached to you there isn’t really another option), the woman got rowdy again when authorities tried to escort her off in N.C. My guess is ripping that shit off probably hurt.

Maria Esther Castillo (not pictured, that’s just some OTHER drunk girl) will show face in court Tuesday for causing the ruckus, which also involved her standing and falling onto the head of a blind passenger, whose hair she later pulled. After ankle cuffs failed to stop Castillo, the flight crew and two passengers were forced to use duct tape to secure her to her seat. …Who the fuck brought duct tape?

An FBI agent investigating the case says a fellow passenger saw Castillo having drinks in the airport bar before boarding, and the woman bought another drink on the plane. I fail to see how someone so wasted they needed to be restrained with industrial adhesive managed to elude the various airport personnel she would have had to pass before boarding the plane, but I suppose alcohol is the only logical way to explain behavior so rowdy it forced an entire commercial airline to land ahead of schedule, in the wrong city.

This reminds me of an episode in June, when a New Yorker was arrested for punching a flight attendant who tried to stop her from lighting up a cigarette on board. That woman, whose sentence (passed down this week, how convenient!) is a stay in a Colorado halfway house, had also done some pre- and in-flight alcohol consumption, and later, just to really round things out, authorities discovered she was also high on cocaine.

Honestly, it seems the crime standards on planes are much lower, or the tolerance levels much higher. This is ironic considering the dangers of just one out of control druggie are far more intense when you’re in a gigantic hunk of metal hurtling through the sky at a billion miles per hour (I really didn’t feel like looking up how fast planes fly). Both of these women not only assaulted airline employees, but also made it necessary for their respective planes to land ahead of schedule, simply so they could be given the boot. Considering frequent flyers are known to complain if their flash-frozen chicken cordon bleu is unseasoned, I find it incredible that all Cocaine Lady got was a trip to the halfway house. I’d expect a fellow passenger of mine to get more than that sort of bullshit slap on the wrist for forcing me to emergency-land in Denver, or any other of America’s various urban armpits.

In any case, I think it’s pretty clear that this has gone too far. If it wasn’t for the fact that airlines make a veritable assload of cash by charging $7+ for little plastic cups of liquor, the FAA would have likely done away with on board drinking ages ago. And as this rate, they might as well. If someone’s grabbing my ass on a cross-country flight, it better be because they want to join the Mile High Club and not because they tossed back one too many sample-size bottles of JD.

[1010 Wins]