A passenger on Alaska Airlines flight 1463 from Seattle to Sacramento on Thursday reportedly was vaping in the lavatory of the Boeing 737 MAX 9. It triggered the lavatory smoke alarm, and the pilot radioed ahead and requested that law enforcement meet the aircraft on arrival.
After arrival in Sacramento, law enforcement met the aircraft at the gate. Alaska banned the passenger.
You can’t smoke on a plane. You can’t vape, either. The FAA has interpreted the prohibition on cigarette smoking to including vaping products, even though they’re quite different. According to the rulemaking,
The NPRM stated our position that the reasons supporting the statutory and regulatory ban on smoking also apply to a ban on e-cigarettes
That’s the case even though the FAA rule explicitly allows a passenger to emit vapor if it is from a “medically beneficial substance.” So it’s not about banning vapor.
The regulation simply extends the ban on cigarettes to include e-cigarettes, which weren’t contemplated when the law against on board smoking was passed.
The first airline to create a nonsmoking section was United back in 1971. No U.S. airline fully banned smoking worldwide until Delta in 1994. U.S. airlines were still allowed to offer on board smoking up until 2000. Yet planes still have ashtrays! You’ll usually find them in or near the lavatory, because customers may smoke even though it’s illegal to do so – and they need a place to put out their cigarettes. Without ashtrays they’d be most likely to put out their cigarettes in the lavatory trash.. and light the paper tossed away inside on fire.
One passenger who lit her cigarette inflight says police beat her after flight attendants spiked her drink. And in 2020 a passenger lit up a cigarette after refusing to wear a mask on board.
Before the pandemic another passenger downed 4 bottles of beer, vaped an e-cigarette, and punched a flight attendant all before his honeymoon. Another lit a cigarette, drank his own booze, and bit a flight attendant’s ear. While a man who burned himself with his own e-cigarette on board had the temerity to sue the airline.
Vaping is nasty and dangerous. F Around and Find Out. Good for AS.
Sadly, there is no shortage of idiotic, moronic people…. In fact, these days they’re multiplying !
Because what @ Matthew said. It may smell like cotton candy or whatever to some, but it smells ike cancer to me.
be careful. if this guy gets away with it, we are going to see tens or hundreds of passengers gonna do that too. no lavatories for peeing
I’ve personally see three separate FAs hit a vape discreetly in the past 7-8 years in about ~2M miles in the sky. No joke.
Everyone does it. It’s not “combustion” and it’s “fire” so you can do it and nobody can tell if you aren’t a complete asshole and obnoxious about it.
Not that it is legal. I’m just saying what is actually happening in the air today.
Re-read the second sentence of the article. It set off the smoke detector. That’s reason enough to ban them. You don’t want smoke detectors going off a 33,000 feet.
“The first airline to create a nonsmoking section was United back in 1971. No U.S. airline fully banned smoking worldwide until Delta in 1994.”
UNITED RISING
SINCE 1971
WOW DELTA SO BAD
What @Gene said about Matthew saying. Also, who’s this @Peaches fella? @L737, I see @Mike (of Argentina fame) has returned.
@1990 How dare you assume my gender.
It’s toxic fumes, same as cigarette smoke. Gary’s really been on a libertarian bent today, what with the wanting to allow phone and video calls piece too…
It’s one thing to advocate for changing of laws, or challenging interpretation of existing law, in court, but just ignoring the laws you don’t like, well, that’s what democrats do. Don’t be like them. This guy’s gonna find out the very hard way that the dildo of justice rarely arrives lubed.
So, if you can emit vapor from a “medically beneficial substance” and marijuana gets dropped to Schedule 3 and you have a script…
the only difference between vaping and smoking is the chemical being spread to others that don’t want to breath chemicals.. one is tar, nicotine and the other is propylene glycol, nicotine and formaldehyde. toxic is toxic.
Secondhand vape is not harmless water vapor; it is an aerosol containing nicotine, heavy metals, and toxic chemicals that can cause respiratory issues, cardiovascular stress, and eye/throat irritation in bystanders. It poses significant risks, particularly to children and asthmatics, by releasing ultrafine particles that enter the lungs and bloodstream.
@ mantis.. who is that guy who hates laws so much he took it to the SCOTUS ? and now he looks for more laws to break? oh, and he’s no democrat..
@1990 — The good ol’ VFTW whe’eze’!
Put on a No Fly List, levy a hefty fine and put in prison for six months. That will discourage the next idiot.
@L737 — BAH! (Hope they’re doing better these days; airport closures and all… DOH! Too.)
@Peaches — *fellow
@George Romey — No, excessive, cruel, unusual disproportionate punishments do not deter behavior… it just violates our 8th Amendment. You really do have awful instincts, sir. Besides, fines up to $250,000 are far more of a deterrent to most than even 6 months in prison anyway.
@Mantis — Dr. Toboggan, ooh lala, an *erotic* twist from your usual commentary.
Save asperand gray, y’all are stoopid. Intrastate flite and med mmj card is easily definable as a beneficial medical substance. Any potential challenger needs to be aware of the risks but otw…
Venice Italy sux.
As a schoolteacher, we’ve had in-service after in-service about the dangers of vaping, the chemicals they emit, the dangers that they present. The last thing that I need to smell or inhale chemicals that in some cases are carcinogenic. Some of my students vape marijuana and other narcotics, and I do not need to be breathing those in. I’ve had students vaping in my classroom; it is absolutely disgusting, with eyes watering, the odor, other kids feeling ill… Imagine that on a plane full of people where you can’t simply open the window. I once walked into the lav on a United 737 last year where someone had been vaping not long before and it was terrible. What a person does in the privacy of their own home is their own business; I could care less. However, when I have to smell it, endure it, and be assaulted by it, I do care.
@Mantis
What “that’s what democrats do”? We are in an illegal war. That’s what repubs do.
“What “that’s what democrats do”? We are in an illegal war. That’s what repubs do.”
Um, didn’t Obama drone US citizens without trials? Why yes, yes he did.
Didn’t Obama fund Iran’s nuclear program by releasing millions of dollars to their regime in cash in the middle of the night? Why yes, yes he did.
Um, who helped overthrow the Libyan government? Gee, I wonder.
Vietnam? Who deployed troops there first without declaring war? Would that have been Johnson, a Democrat? Why yes, yes it would have been.
My point is, neither party has a monopoly on purity. Let’s stop pretending the the Democrats, the party of secession, slavery, the Confederacy, and the original founders of the KKK, are somehow morally pure. No one is. Never. So, stop pretending that they are.