Flight Attendant Quits And Exits Plane Via Emergency Slide

You may question his actions, but you can't say that 38-year-old flight attendant Steven Slater doesn't know how to quit in style. After a passenger refused to apologize for hitting him in the head with either a bag or the overhead compartment, Slater got on the the loudspeaker and told those aboard to "go f*** themselves." He the grabbed a couple beers from the drink cart, activated the emergency chute, and slid away into unemployment.

Comments

I tell you what i'd do...

[Anonymous Coward]

...2 chick at the same time.

He lived the dream.

[Anonymous Coward]

That is all.

What was the crime?

[gknoy]

JetBlue flight attendant Steven Slater, 38, of Queens, N.Y., has been charged with criminal mischief and reckless endangerment

I'm not sure I understand what the mischief and reckless endangerment is here. The plane was on the ground, so using the emergency chute isn't likely to hurt anyone, is it? I guess I am just missing the connection between "Quits Rudely" and "Potentially 7 years of prison".

Re:What was the crime?

[Anonymous Coward]

I think he was also charged with criminal trespass, which is probably the most legitimate charge, not 7 years worth of prison time though.

Re:What was the crime?

[hamburgler007]

The premise behind the reckless endangerment charge from what I understand is that ground crew could have been killed if they were under the chute. He is lucky that he is just dealing with state charges. If the feds want to they could charge him and potentially seek a fuckload more than 7 years.

Re:What was the crime?

[g0bshiTe]

With current TSA regulations he will be lucky to get off with probation and fines. I'm sure a court could make the charges stick.

Re:What was the crime?

[sjames]

More likely it stems from prosecutors anxious not to let a little thing like the Constitution get in the way of their career hideously inflating the charges for any crime to the point that even innocent defendants prefer a plea agreement over rolling the dice at a trial they can't afford.

But, But, I Thought It Was Her Fault?

[LifesABeach]

It's a shame the Stew' didn't share her misery by giving free beer to everyone.

Mystified

[Kozz]

Am I honestly the only one who is mystified by the apparent meteoric (and heroic) rise of this hot-headed schmuck?

Re:Mystified

[ZWarrior]

I would hope you are the only one mystified by it.

The reason for the stew's popularity? He did what so many of us would like to do when the rude people win. Tell them off and get the last word.

As a frequent traveler, I won't condemn him/ however, I will say that his actions, although excessive and illegal, are indicative of a reaction to the change in attitude toward others I have seen while traveling. Most, but not all, passengers on flights ignore the stews all flight except when they want something from the stews. Meanwhile they put up with rude people who feel that what they want and need is more important than anyone elses needs on the flight, no matter what.

The stew was hit in the head because someone opend a overhead bin into his head. When confronted and asked to apologize the person in question refused. Common courtesy and manners says apologize, but the attitudes I see these days says that they should tell the stew where to go.

Is it too much to ask that we go back to treating each other the way we want to be treated?

Re:Mystified

[Kozz]

You can't control what other people do. But you are in control of your own reactions.

Re:Mystified

[diskofish]

People like the rude passenger in question slow down the boarding and exiting and make life miserable for everyone. Last time I flew, I was close to the back of the plane and the guy next to me popped up as soon as we landed and ran to the front almost knocking people over shouting "Excuse me, I am in a big hurry.", as if there were no other passengers on the flight that had somewhere to be. If there were only a way to charge a difficult customer premium, maybe people would think before being inconsiderate.

Re:Mystified

[sznupi]

"Go back"? You know, dismissing fantasies about the past would help a lot, too...

7 years?

[Dalzhim]

He could face 7 years in jail? That's nice. I'm pretty sure some people manage to get less for murder. Maybe that's what he should have done?

Re:7 years?

[InfiniteWisdom]

For an action that could easily have killed someone on the ground? Seems entirely reasonable to me.

Re:7 years?

[Anonymous Coward]

but who wouldnt want to use the super happy fun slide one last time

Re:7 years?

[SomePoorSchmuck]

"An action that could easily have killed someone".
Are you kidding me?

Should someone spend 10% of their life in prison for doing a "rolling stop" at a red light?
Should a tractor-trailer driver who goes 9mph over the speed limit spend 22,000 consecutive days in a jail cell?
Should someone who sets off a string of Black Cats on a dry 4th of July Day get 7 years of daily life with murderers and rapists and, even worse, crooked hedge fund managers?

Re:7 years?

[InfiniteWisdom]

Have you heard of at thing called shades of gray? You can take anything to an extreme and use it to attack something, but that doesn't make you right. Do you believe there's no difference between blowing through a stop sign at 100 mph and rolling through it at 5 mph? Do you honestly believe it's possible to draw some line where it suddenly becomes okay? It's safe at 5mph suddenly becomes dangerous at 6mph?

The fact is, this idiot chose to be "dramatic" and deploy a slide which deploys with great force and could be lethal to anybody who was caught under it, while the plane was at the gate and ground crews would be approaching the plane as a part of their jobs. Further more, unlike your "rolling stop" strawman, there's no way he could reliably tell from where he was whether or not someone was in harms way.

Maybe you believe that reckless actions that could harm others shouldn't be punished until someone actually is harmed?

What he did was pretty awesome but...

[hamburgler007]

I don't think criminal charges (not necessarily what he is being charged with) is unreasonable. If the plane was indeed at the gate, that would be one of the most dangerous times to deploy the emergency slide, as ground crew is active for the plane. If a baggage handler was killed because a flight attendant wanted to quit in style I can guarantee you he wouldn't be getting this type of positive feedback. Also, if any of us decided to cause thousands of dollars worth of damage when quitting (and thousands of dollars in his case is way lower than what it cost JetBlue) there would almost certainly be some legal repercussions, quite possibly criminal charges. With respect to the cost of this incident, that should be left to JetBlue to decide what to do, and they probably won't do anything about that because of the PR, but I wouldn't blame them if they did.

Re:What he did was pretty awesome but...

[tibman]

Maybe the flight attendant felt he was being assaulted.. his training took over and he fled the fight via the fastest means availble. *cough* and grabbed a beer for the pain or something *cough*

It does suck that modern society protects assholes though. Wouldn't the guy who hit the attendant be partially responsible for this?

Motivation

[tapdancer3450]

The guy may have been "provoked" by "getting hit in the head with luggage," but you just know that he was looking for an excuse to ride the escape chute (and steal some booze in the process). Ah, the perks of being a flight attendant...

7 years?

[BonquiquiShiquavius]

So yeah, he was completely unprofessional, and could have hurt the ground crew...but 7 years prison potentially? That seems a bit much.

I wonder what brand

[bugs2squash]

of beer he grabbed, and whether it will become a beer commercial.

Re:I wonder what brand

[Anonymous Coward]

of beer he grabbed, and whether it will become a beer commercial.

I think its called mile high