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Passenger says United ‘trapped’ her next to a man who masturbated on flight. Then the airline let him leave. (www.nbcnews.com)
submitted 3 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) by to c/nottheonion@lemmy.world
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Edit: Original site is paywalled and seeming to not always load, here is another article about the incident: https://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/local/united-airlines-flight-masturbating-incident/6551525/

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[–] 20 points 3 days ago (38 children)

Anyone who got past the paywall know what protocol was violated? From the information available, I'm sincerely unsure of what they could have done. Were they supposed to go up the aisle asking someone else to sit next to the masturbator? Were they supposed to swap one of them to one of the flight attendant seats? Can they even detain the guy after landing? I legitimately don't know what they're supposed to do in this situation, other than provide information for the victim to press charges

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  • [–] 52 points 3 days ago* (30 children)

    Public masturbation is illegal. The protocol is probably to inform the commander and law enforcement and ask the person to stop, and restraining him if he does not comply.

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  • [–] 11 points 3 days ago (3 children)

    Yeah I suspect the "let him leave" wasn't down to United in this case, if law enforcement doesn't want to pick him up at deboarding they can't do much. Hopefully he gets charged, but it'd require the police to detain him on touchdown.

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  • [–] 6 points 3 days ago (2 children)

    There is no reason they need to detain you to charge you.

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  • [–] 4 points 2 days ago

    Snagging him right at the arrival gate seems pretty reasonable, and certainly security has done so after flights for many various offenses in the past.

    But yeah, at the very least they should know who the guy was and be able to provide information to the authorities in order to press charges.

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  • [–] 4 points 3 days ago

    Yeah that was my point, sorry if I expressed it badly. That he'll probably be charged, but detainment if warranted would have come down to the police picking him up, related to a criminal charge and independent of a civil case by United.

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  • [–] 5 points 3 days ago (10 children)

    Well, that’s probably why they let him leave, nobody wants to touch that guy with a ten foot pole, let alone restrain him.

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  • [–] 6 points 3 days ago (7 children)

    Pretty sure it was that. They could still have thrown some blankets on him and binded his wrists to the seat.

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  • [–] 11 points 3 days ago (6 children)

    Flight attendants have duct taped people to seats in the past.

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  • [–] -3 points 2 days ago (5 children)

    Yes, they duct tape people who pose a threat of death or serious injury to passengers and/or crew.

    Someone with deficient stealth-jacking skills disgusts and offends passengers and crew, but doesn't threaten injury. Restraints are not justified.

    There is a rather large community of people recording and storing radio communication between pilots and ATC. Chance are pretty good we'll hear whether the pilots requested law enforcement at the gate. If they failed to request law enforcement, that would be on the pilots and airline. If law enforcement failed to respond, that would be on the cops.

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  • [–] 2 points 2 days ago (4 children)

    Someone with deficient stealth-jacking skills disgusts and offends passengers and crew, but doesn’t threaten injury. Restraints are not justified.

    If you're hit with someone's spunk nonconsensually, I think that counts as injury or some approximate of that, legally.

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  • [–] 2 points 2 days ago (3 children)

    It's certainly harm, and justified law enforcement intervention. But it's not a "open the emergency exit door in flight" level of harm. Nobody is threatened with death or grievous bodily harm here. Forceful intervention would increase that risk, rather than reducing it.

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  • [–] 3 points 2 days ago (2 children)

    Harm and injury seem to be good enough reason to restrain. Dude could have gone into the bathroom and jacked it. Didn't have to do that in front of others, potentially including kids. Probably going to end up on a list and get sued.

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  • [–] 3 points 2 days ago

    I do think she would have been, if not "justified", then "excused" if she had tried to strike him, as his behavior would likely be considered inciting. And anything he did in response to having been struck would have justified restraining him.

    But there would have to be some kind of physical altercation involving him before they could pull out the duct tape.

    They definitely should have asked for a volunteer to swap seats with her. An air marshall could have arrested and handcuffed him.

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  • [+] -8 points 2 days ago* (10 children)

    That's kinda fucked up for homeless people, if true

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  • [–] 5 points 2 days ago (8 children)

    What do you mean?

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  • [+] -6 points 2 days ago (7 children)
    [removed by mod]
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  • [–] 8 points 2 days ago (5 children)

    Counterpoint: It's not a human need to goon or have sex in public.

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  • [–] 2 points 2 days ago (3 children)

    It's a human need to have sex. But yeah, having sex in public should never be done.

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  • [–] 5 points 2 days ago (2 children)

    What's probably happening here is some people hear "in public" and think it means "in public view" and not what it literally means, "not on private property open to the public"

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  • [+] -15 points 3 days ago* (3 children)

    Restraining him is almost definitely not something the flight crew should attempt. Flight crew are not trained for this and could get injured. It could also easily escalate the situation and the last thing you want is a fight on board while in air. That could cause danger to the plane or other passengers. Asking him to stop and detaining him after landing would probably be the protocol.

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  • [–] 28 points 3 days ago (2 children)

    Passenger handling is part of their training, including procedures to deal with deranged people

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  • [–] 3 points 2 days ago*

    I am technically trained in CPR. You absolutely shouldn't rely on my CPR skills if there is another choice. Wrangling a deranged person is difficult even for people with ample training and experience (e.g. cops), let alone for flight crew with very basic training. If the person is not a danger to himself or others, there is no reason they would escalate the situation during flight.

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  • [–] 3 points 2 days ago (6 children)

    I feel like an attendant should have swapped seats with her. Because a) it's the right thing to do and b) to cover the airline's ass a bit.

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  • [–] 11 points 2 days ago

    Believe it or not, you're not required to subject yourself to sex crimes as part of your employment.

    Realistically the best response was probably just letting the passenger stand with the crew in their little cubby? I'm sure there's laws and rules that the crew thought prevented that, because most people think there isn't flexibility unless you're a billionaire.

    What absolutely should have happened regardless was calling the police and security.

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  • [–] 1 point 2 days ago (4 children)

    Genuine question, is that allowed? I know their seats are different, I don't know if that would incur some liability

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  • [–] 2 points 2 days ago (3 children)

    Flight attendants have duties to attend to in case of an emergency upon landing. For example, opening doors and deploying evacuation slides. For that, they have to be at their stations.

    If there were extra, off-duty crew aboard, that would have been reasonable. They could have asked if they had any law enforcement personnel aboard, or asked for volunteers.

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  • [–] 1 point 2 days ago (2 children)

    The air martial should have been seated there

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  • [–] 1 point 2 days ago (1 child)

    There almost certainly wasn't one. There's only about 3000 air marshals total, but over 10,000 airline flights per day. If there was one on the flight, this guy would have been taken into custody. I'd be surprised if 1 in 10 flights had an air marshal aboard.

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