An American Airlines first class passenger on a delayed flight departing Las Vegas reportedly called 911 trying to get police to force the flight to leave. Reportedly he was “high as a kite.” When you’re high it’s not the best time to call police.
And police aren’t going to force the Airbus A321 to fly. A delay is going to be for a good reason – the airline wants to depart on-time and officers won’t second guess them and lack the authority to in any case. Video shows the passenger taken off the aircraft by police, “7 cops carried him off.”
Calling the Las Vegas police to try to get them to force your plane to take off almost never works. pic.twitter.com/KDzLgcSxqc
— Las Vegas Locally (@LasVegasLocally) March 5, 2025
Back in June an American Airlines passenger, stuck on the ground on a plane in Dallas for three hours amidst several terrible days operationally as the carrier battled storms around Dallas and ran low on reserve crew, reported being forced “to dial 911 for someone to help us get off [the] plane.” 911 said they were helpless.
Stories like this resonate with me because it was a plot point of L.A. Law‘s season 3, episode 10 “The Plane Mutiny.” Firm managing partner Douglas Brackman was trying to fly to Chicago to win a client. The flight went mechanical, and passengers sat in the aircraft for hours.
Brackman demanded to be let off the aircraft, so he could find another flight, but the captain put him in his place – threatening to shoot the lawyer.
But the woman sitting beside him on the plane had a cell phone. In the late 1980s! He asks to borrow it, and we pan to a lawyer from the firm appearing before a judge seeking an order to have the airline free the passengers off the aircraft. That works, the everyone is let off – and Brackman is arrested for interfering with flight crew and for use of a cell phone on the aircraft.
Brackman lands the client (they’re impressed by his resourcefulness and aggressiveness) and a date with the cell phone woman.
Fast forward a decade and a man with a cell phone on a delayed flight became a national hero. 198 passengers on board Northwest Airlines 1829 were famously delayed in January 1999. The flight had diverted, and then the next day sat on the tarmac in Detroit for 7 hours. Toilets overflowed, food and water ran out, the cabin filled with a stench, and passengers threatened to open an emergency door.
One passenger figured out how to dial the Northwest’s CEO at home. John Dasburg’s wife answered. Eventually the captain spoke directly to the CEO, and they got a gate and everyone finally made it off the aircraft.
The Goldsteins figured Mr. Dasburg must live in one of the nicer suburbs of Minneapolis. Mrs. Goldstein’s uncle lives in one of those suburbs, Edina, Minn. They called Edina directory assistance on their cell phone. To their amazement, they found a listing.
The doctor dialed at once and got Mary Lou Dasburg, the CEO’s wife, who said her husband wasn’t at home. “I’m currently on one of your husband’s planes in Detroit,” Dr. Goldstein, 35, said. “There are 30 planes on the ground here. He needs to know.” As the two talked, passengers in nearby rows leaned in to listen. According to Dr. Goldstein, Mrs. Dasburg promised to call flight operations herself to find out what was going on. (Mrs. Dasburg confirms the call.)
In this case, though, the incident happened in Las Vegas and the passenger stayed in Vegas.
Yet another reason to not route through Vegas—it really does attract weirdos.
And let this be another reminder that those with money (I presume this guy could afford First) aren’t necessarily ‘smart.’
Likewise, being intelligent doesn’t make you rich, either. Kinda sad to think of all the brilliant minds that have died ‘in the fields’ throughout human history.
So who DO you call if you sincerely believe your pilot (or flight attendant) is “High as a kite”? Yes, it happens.
Pilots, etc are not always right. Regardless of the situation. Lives are at stake.
And there are some real a-holes in NYC. They are a-holes largely because NYC culture lets them get away with it. If you pout and never smile in NYC (extremely common in particular among 25-65yo Manhattan women and 45-75yo Brooklyn men) nobody will call you out on your lack of charisma. In communities outside the urban northeast US, you get ostracized for such coldness.
Former US President John F Kennedy said Washington DC had the efficiency of the South and the charm of the North. To wit he was saying NYC has no charm. That is certainly true of below-median people in NYC, a total dearth of interpersonal charisma.
Virtually all big money (which you certainly don’t need to buy First, but my point stands) is earned by people who got lucky. Fortune may favor the bold, but luck and intelligence are orthogonal. You don’t know what orthogonal means? You obviously aren’t as smart as me or even at a baseline acceptable level of college educated smartness in our modern AI powered world. Every modern college student graduating today ought to have taken basic courses in statistics and linear algebra lest they have absolutely no way to grasp even the very basics of inferential models.
This is extremely sad. The only way intelligence makes you rich is through quant research at a HFT/hedge fund or similar. And you practically, if not actually, need to be autistic for that to happen. Normal (non-savant) levels of intelligence is relegated to the tenure line faculty of universities that pay maybe $250,000 a year to a full professor at age 50. A junior associate at most Manhattan law firms earn that in their first year out of law school. An entry level software engineer at a big tech company earns that in their first year out of undergrad.
I just read that article you linked about the Northwest flight in 1999. Very interesting. But I wonder about the other planes that were stuck waiting. Some even longer.. I’d like to know what the longest wait was that day..