WSJ - NW Airlines story -- Part 3
Ms. Ward, a 28-year veteran, was tiring of the cascading
passenger complaints.
"There are worse scenarios, folks," she told several
complainers. "We didn't land in the Andes. No one
has to eat each other."
It didn't seem to soothe anybody. By 7:45, five hours
into the wait, Capt. Stabler phoned the Northwest
duty manager he had called a couple of hours before
-- and even the captain's studied control showed
cracks. "People are starting to lose their composure
here," he yelled at the manager. "People are really irate. I'm afraid somebody
will make a panic evacuation."
The manager was unmoved. "You should see what it's like in the terminal," he
said. "There are thousands of people in here. There are fistfights. The airport
police are arresting people." (Airport officials say there were no arrests that
weekend.)
The unraveling of Flight 1829 was picking up pace.
Capt. Stabler could feel the situation shifting into
what he told himself was a "psychological and
emotional dance." People were out of baby formula,
out of diapers. Things were happening all at once. A
man in first class began hyperventilating. A young
woman in coach whimpered that she was having a
heart attack. Scott Friedman, a physician, treated the
woman -- by pointing out that her arm had fallen
asleep, which explained the tingling. "Just shake your
arm," he prescribed.
At about the same time in the rear of the plane, Mr.
Forbes, the attendant, was informed that the left
lavatory in coach, behind row 26 near door 3A,
appeared to be clogged. He could see blue fluid
lapping up into the bowl. Mr. Forbes wrapped a garbage bag around his arm
and used a rolled-up plastic safety placard to plunge the toilet. He determined
that its waste-holding tank was full, but didn't block off the door because the
toilet itself seemed to continue receiving waste.
Just as he emerged from the lavatory, a man in his 50s assailed him. "If I were
in charge of the situation, I would have us at the gate!" the man yelled, jutting
his face close to Mr. Forbes. The stress, the man continued, wasn't helping his
heart condition; he needed to see the pilot. Mr. Forbes walked him toward the
cockpit. "Heads up," Ms. Ward warned Capt. Stabler from her position in the
first-class galley. "Here he comes."
Capt. Stabler intercepted the man in the galley. "I'm a stent patient," the man
bellowed. "What if I start having trouble?" He began to cry. "What would it
take to get us off this airplane?"
Capt. Stabler took the man's hand. "I understand why you feel provoked," he
said.
"If we had a medical emergency, that may move us to the head of the line," the
man sobbed.
"It really has to be an authentic problem for us to declare that," the captain
said.
"I'll do it if it will get us off the airplane," said the sobbing man.
Ms. Ward, standing beside the captain, observed that
feigning a medical emergency "will be a federal
offense. There are stiff penalties."
The man sniffled, and slunk to his seat.
He had hardly settled in when Sharon Friedman,
Sonya Friedman's daughter, had her own crisis. A
flight attendant had mentioned that the scene inside
the terminal was like "a refugee camp." Something
about that image got to Sharon, a 41-year-old
psychologist and lawyer. She walked forward into
first class, leaned her head into the cabin wall and
cried. Her husband approached with their 5-year-old
son, Gordon, but she shooed them away.
It was about 8:15. Flight 1829 had been on the ground for 5 1/2 hours.
The 60 gallons of potable water on the plane had almost run out, including the
water to the lavatory sinks. The plane had long since begun to smell: a mix of
used diapers, dirty clothes and sweat. Mrs. Ruskin, the guidance counselor,
thought of it as "the odor of being confined."
There was another odor. The lavatory holding tanks had reached their 55.5
gallon capacity. Mr. Pettis, the clinic director, in seat 32C near the back of the
plane, had gone into the right rear lavatory about an hour earlier -- and
immediately turned around, repulsed: There were empty beer cans in the sink,
the bowl was backed up, the trash bins were stuffed with diapers. Now, he
detected a thin stream of sewage oozing from under the door of that lavatory.
"Now we have a health hazard," he blurted to flight attendant Ms. March. She
agreed: "These toilets are disgusting." From then on, every time someone
emerged from any of the three rear lavatories, a chorus rang out from nearby
passengers:
"Close the door! It stinks!"
So near and yet so far: At 2:50, Flight 1829 parks on little-used Zulu taxiway.
The jet is not far from the gates, some of which are vacant, and is even closer
to a Northwest hangar. The plane moves only once in the next seven hours.
The five or six lawyers on board were fast becoming the most popular
passengers, as others quizzed them about the possibility of a lawsuit. Mr.
London, the passenger from Toronto, found one attorney who figured there
might be a case against the airline for "false imprisonment." Seizing the
moment, Mr. London, 32, circulated a notebook through the cabin. Gathering
that it was from a lawyer enlisting clients, more than 50 passengers signed up
on behalf of themselves and their families.
In 32D, Mr. McCoy, the police artist, was starting to lose his grip. "I've
wasted almost two days of my vacation on an airplane with a bunch of
crying-ass kids and big fat people I don't know," he thought to himself. A
woman sitting behind him began carping about how much she wanted off. Mr.
McCoy exploded.
"I'm sick of sitting on this goddamn plane!" he shouted. "I watched the sun go
down and I'm still sitting in this little chair."
Two rows forward, a man swiveled and ordered Mr. McCoy to watch his
language. "Don't tell me what to do!" the police artist roared. "I'm a grown
man. I'm going to cuss as much as I goddamn please. If you don't like it, get
me off this f------ plane."
As the two men argued, Ms. Ward, the lead attendant, hurried all the way back
from first class. "I don't appreciate this," she told Mr. McCoy. He backed off.
More passengers were complaining about hunger. Ms. Ward gave away her
own instant oatmeal, and used the last of the hot water to mix it. She gave it to
a mother with a wailing baby. Another mom, sitting in the back of economy,
demanded to see Ms. Ward.
"What are you going to do about feeding my children?" she huffed. "Get some
food from the terminal!"
"We can't," Ms. Ward replied. "Besides, there's no food in the terminal."
Galled, she marched to the cockpit and related the conversation to the pilots.
They eyed their own leftovers from lunch. "We haven't touched these
sandwiches, but they're ice cold," Capt. Stabler said. Ms. Ward bagged them
up and returned to the passenger.
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