Virgin Atlantic Flight Makes Emergency Landing at Gatwick Airport

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Contact photographer Steve Brimley

What: American Airlines Boeing 767-300 en route from Dallas to London
Where: UK
When: Mar 2nd 2010
Who: 161 passengers and 12 crew
Why: While en route, a female passenger apparently became hysterical and attempted to gain access to the cockpit. She was “chilled” down by the crew, and provided a reception by UK police on arrival to Heathrow. She was arrested on suspicion of endangering an aircraft.

On receiving news of the unruly passenger attempting to gain access, the UK also provided two Royal Air Force fighter Typhoon jets from RAF Coningsby in Lincolnshire as escort, flying side by side with the American Airlines flight.

Although the jets returned to base when it was determined the incident was the woman’s emotional meltdown (reputedly due to an illness in her family), and not a “terror incident, it is a sign of the times that fighter jets are pulled into service and London Airspace is placed under a Restricted/security Alert when a pilot requests a priority approach (even though the situation is under control). Of course, if this were a terror incident, why would they continue to route to Heathrow? I find the course of action confusing.

Consider some points and see if there is some kind of balance to be found:

• How responsible is the woman, if she were having a true panic attack, which is a true mental disorder?
• What was the fuel bill for the two Air Force fighters (plus the wages of those engaged to contain our fearful flyer?)
• What were the fighters going to do? Shoot down a passenger jet with 172 normal people and 1 mentally ill passenger aboard?
• Did anyone consider the likelihood of two fighter jets actually calming a woman in a panic? If her panic attack is the kind related to a Mitral valve prolapse, she may well have died.
• Who made the decision to deploy fighter jets in an instance when the ones most endangered are inside? What can the jet pilots actually do other than shoot down the commercial jet? Did they not believe the pilot that things were under control, and had to actually peek in the window to make sure?

Is this a little like using the lid of the superdome to contain a butterfly? And how reasonable is it to arrest someone for a panic attack? It seems that in response to her panic attack, everyone else must have had one too. Is it catching?