Southwest denies emergency phone call before take off

[PositionAndHold]

Ha! Well played! I was thinking at the time......hmmm, well, wish the generator had decided to quit the bed 10 minutes ago. Now I have to wait for multiple F-4s and F-5s with low fuel and engines out and a fire light, to head in first. Hack the clock.....because if the second gen decides to go, the battery gives me about 10 mins or so (20 mins with brand new battery), and the jet becomes a flying brick, falling out of the sky to wherever over the South Korean penninsula.

Dude, you could've gone to Kunsan, it's only like 125 miles away. Oh yeah, no one wants to go to Kunsan. The bugs.....THE BUGS.

 

[MikeD]

I was just explaining how we were regulars at the lunch special at Peter Piper a few weeks ago as well!

Ha! How did that come up in convo?

Good pizza at Peter Piper, btw....

 

[MikeD]

Dude, you could've gone to Kunsan, it's only like 125 miles away. Oh yeah, no one wants to go to Kunsan. The bugs.....THE BUGS.

That story was at recovery to Kunsan. It was during my 117 deployment there at Kunsan, after I'd transferred out of A-10s. Osan would've been nice, but they were below mins as was most of the ROK, except for the Kun and Sokcho or some other AB on the northeast coast. Tageu's (ROKAF) F-4s were recovering at the Kun, as were their F-5s from Kun. That's when all heck began breaking loose. I had a serious, but not critical at the moment, emergency; but I also had tons of fuel at the moment......so, go hold at the IAF. Expect vectors and handoff to the final controller........at some point in time.

"Per the SOF, EFC is TBD for now, Ghost 7; descend and maintain FL200 and advise entering holding and any IFE changes" Lol. Nice warm and fuzzy there.......I still even have that tape with the radio comm and HUD view of IMC, the ROKAF PAR controller talking me down, and breaking out of the WX at about 150 and 3/8 or so.

 

[PositionAndHold]

That story was at recovery to Kunsan. It was during my 117 deployment there at Kunsan, after I'd transferred out of A-10s. Osan would've been nice, but they were below mins as was most of the ROK, except for the Kun and Sokcho or some other AB on the northeast coast. Tageu's (ROKAF) F-4s were recovering at the Kun, as were their F-5s from Kun. That's when all heck began breaking loose. I had a serious, but not critical at the moment, emergency; but I also had tons of fuel at the moment......so, go hold at the IAF. Expect vectors and handoff to the final controller........at some point in time.

"Per the SOF, EFC is TBD for now, Ghost 7; descend and maintain FL200 and advise entering holding and any IFE changes" Lol. Nice warm and fuzzy there.......I still even have that tape with the radio comm and HUD view of IMC, the ROKAF PAR controller talking me down, and breaking out of the WX at about 150 and 3/8 or so.

I'd love to see/hear those tapes. I can only imagine what a ROKAF controller sounded like during a PAR. I was just a lowly PowerPro, Barrier Maintenance guy at the time. I was at Camp Humpreys. We also supported some of the comm up/downlinks with the U2's at Osan. Luckily I only had to go down to Kunsan for a week during one of the exercises.

 

[ComplexHiAv8r]

I have been told by ATC to hold at an IAF in the weather during an emergency.....because the 6 other emergencies they were working at the time to sequence to the same single-runway airfield on night/IMC PAR recoveries were all more critical than mine, even though mine was critical enough. Just goes to show, the scope doesn't come to a screeching halt with aircraft that still need to be worked/sequenced/held/separated, just because I become an emergency.

Is this the b52 dreaded 7 engine approach?

 

[Deleted member 27505]

This is an interesting story. I'm sure if the captain had been notified he/she would have allowed the phone call.

http://fox40.com/2015/05/15/woman-c...sband-after-receiving-troubling-text-message/


GERMANTOWN, Wisconsin —

A Wisconsin woman says Southwest Airlines refused to let her call her husband after she received a troubling text message shortly before her flight was scheduled to take off.

Last month, Karen Momsen-Evers was flying back to Milwaukee when she received a text message from her husband, Andy, that read, “Karen, please forgive me for what I am about to do, I am going to kill myself…”

“I started shaking the minute I got the text and I was panicked, I didn’t know what to do,” Momsen-Evers told WTMJ, noting that her husband had been stressed recently.

Momsen-Evers responded “no” to the text message and immediately tried to call her husband, but a flight attendant told her to turn the phone off.

“The steward slapped the phone down and said you need to go on airplane mode now,” she told WTMJ.

Momsen-Evers says she explained the situation but was told it was “FAA regulations” and nothing could be done. Once the flight reached a cruising altitude, she explained the situation to another attendant in hopes of being able to make an emergency phone call during the flight.

“I begged her, I said I’m sure someone can make an emergency phone call,” but she says the woman told her there was nothing she could do.

Momsen-Evers said she sat in her seat and sobbed for the entire flight.

When the plane arrived at the gate, she immediately called police. When she arrived at home, she was met by officers who informed her that her husband had killed himself.

Southwest Airlines issued a statement to WTMJ in response to the incident.

“Our hearts go out to the Evers family during this difficult time. Our flight attendants are trained to notify the Captain if there is an emergency that poses a hazard to the aircraft or to the passengers on-board. In this situation, the pilots were not notified.”

The airline also offered the woman a full refund.

“The pain of knowing something could have been done, it breaks my heart,” she said.

This is what you get when you allow a "checklist society" to evolve. Everyone lives in fear. All jobs... and lives... are prescribed and proscribed. There is no sense of irony, even from those chanting the mantra, marching in line, carrying signs supporting "critical thinking". Good luck, humans.

 

[somewhereupthere]

It's the internet, sweetie.