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Business Insider reports that a JetBlue Flight Attendant named Steven Slater activated an emergency slide, left the aircraft, got his car, and drove home.
The Flight, 1052 from Pittsburgh, was operated by an Embraer 190 regional jet. AÂ passenger who did not wait until they reached the terminal at JFK removed his suitcase from the overhead, hitting Slater in the head. After demanding an apology, the passenger cursed him out, after which Slater cursed over the PA, deployed the slide, grabbed two beers from the galley, and ran off to the terminal.
He took the shuttle to long-term parking and drove home. He was arrested and charged with criminal mischief and reckless endangerment. This is rather surprising behavior from a flight attendant at any airline. They are highly trained professionals and such odd behavior is not common.
The Port Authority claims that Jetblue waiting 25 minutes to notify them of the incident is the reason he was able to make it off the grounds. They declined to comment on why they delayed in notifying the authorities.
While we understand JetBlue’s public statement that they do not discuss information about specific crewmembers with the public, we hope there will be an explanation for this. But even if it turns out that the man had become suddenly unstable, there is no reason to jump to the conclusion JetBlue could have reasonably predicted it. We hope they publicly state at some point, at the least, that there was no indication/warning signs they could have picked up on to prevent this.
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