Jetstar Perth taser incident

[Ade]

If they direct a pax to do something, do it pronto.

Absolutely, without question. Do it. Just so that one can maintain their peace.

If the AFP ask or direct you to do something - well, it always has the potential to end badly if one doesn't.

Yes, non-compliance to law enforcement is not viewed favourably anywhere ...

 

[Austman]

From what I can gather from the reports, that permission was not sought? Or was not allowed?

I've just read one newspaper report where the pax claims he was actually given permission to swap seats from a crew member. And that the crew member later returned and requested he take his allocated seat ...

It might have been a take your allocated seat until after take off and then swap type of permission?

 

[kangarooflyer88]

Given your story below, there may be more to this!

Not really. I've travelled the world and frankly have never seen anything like this. The only encounter I had with police in Canada was when I was actually being suspicious (i.e. driving around in circles at 3 AM passing a cop car several times). I could understand why they pulled me over and explained why I was doing that and they let me go and that was it.

Searched??? Well, living here over 60 years I've never been so much as looked at sideways by a walloper in any situation (OK, there have been a couple of speeding tickets), yet the couple of years I lived in Canada, I was yelled at several times by the RCMP for their quaint enforcement of 'jaywalking' (as in, crossing a completely deserted road in a blizzard but not using a crossing because, like, it was freezing!).

I was in Broadbeach in the Gold Coast and a group of officers came up to me and others in a park and started searching our bags. I complied of course but found it rather odd since I never encountered that elsewhere including roaming the streets of downtown Detroit in the early hours of the morning.

Nevertheless, wouldn't you move if asked?
The evictee is quoted as saying he didn't know Jetstar's policies and would have moved if he was told the policy. So FA should have added "because that is our policy" when asking him to move. Seriously.

Yeah seems like a piss poor excuse for what could potentially have been unacceptable behaviour on the part of the passenger.

1. Assuming that the pax was being reasonable, then the only wrongdoing, so to speak, on the pax behalf, is non-compliance. Now, is tasering the right/appropriate action to non-compliance? Depends ... depends where the incident occurs, what's the impact etc. The incident happened in an aircraft. AFP had entered the aircraft because JQ FA called for assistance.

There are different ways to deal with non-compliance from giving a talking to, handcuffing them, tasering them, or dragging them off the plane head first, David Dao style. Now this clearly isn't the latter but it does seem fairly excessive in terms of force.

3. Could this also because, in the video, we are seeing a young-ish family with a 1 yo kid and the father is getting tasered in front of the whole plane and his family, which will not be a pleasant thing to go through for him or the family or a pleasant thing to watch without feeling bad for the human being being tasered. I mean it is an emotional rollercoaster for the parties involved.

Yes, this is definitely not the way to handle a situation. I don't quite get what these passengers see by fighting the boot off the plane. Do they honestly think there will be a change of heart? Especially when the AFP are involved, and especially on such a long flight as this? Don't see it happening. Even if you disagree with the boot, there are routes to fight it after the fact (ideally when cooler heads prevail).

-RooFlyer88

 

[Hvr]

A common sequence to deal with this type of situation is ATM.

Ask the person to comply with your request.
Tell the person to comply with your request.
Make the person comply with your request. At this stage the person knows exactly what is expected of them and what will happen next.

The further into the process the less likely you are to be satisfied with how you're treated. But there are no surprises, you've basically dared the police to make you comply. That's always a losing proposition.

In a previous role I once had to RSA a person and when he was spoken to and asked to leave, he quietly spoke to the RSA Officer; 'Yes sir, can you please take me to the taxi rank?' The response; 'Certainly sir, just this way'. He acted respectfully and instantly complied. He was quietly guided to the taxi rank without a fuss. Now this was a bloke, 185cm and all muscle. However, they were ready to 'make' him if required.

I did see people who got to the 'make' stage, and they always lost, and got into further trouble because of their aggressive behaviour.

The man in this incident was always going to be left behind once the process passed the 'Ask' stage. And now, he may even have to walk home from WA, I really can't see any airline letting him board their plane.

If he'd quietly complied with the FAs request and complained later, he probably would've got the response he desired.

 

[justinbrett]

Not really. I've travelled the world and frankly have never seen anything like this. The only encounter I had with police in Canada was when I was actually being suspicious (i.e. driving around in circles at 3 AM passing a cop car several times). I could understand why they pulled me over and explained why I was doing that and they let me go and that was it.

I was in Broadbeach in the Gold Coast and a group of officers came up to me and others in a park and started searching our bags. I complied of course but found it rather odd since I never encountered that elsewhere including roaming the streets of downtown Detroit in the early hours of the morning.

Yeah seems like a piss poor excuse for what could potentially have been unacceptable behaviour on the part of the passenger.

There are different ways to deal with non-compliance from giving a talking to, handcuffing them, tasering them, or dragging them off the plane head first, David Dao style. Now this clearly isn't the latter but it does seem fairly excessive in terms of force.

Yes, this is definitely not the way to handle a situation. I don't quite get what these passengers see by fighting the boot off the plane. Do they honestly think there will be a change of heart? Especially when the AFP are involved, and especially on such a long flight as this? Don't see it happening. Even if you disagree with the boot, there are routes to fight it after the fact (ideally when cooler heads prevail).

-RooFlyer88

Hmmm.. after reading your posts, if I was a cop, I'd probably search you too...

 

[jb747]

There is an entire chapter in this book that is missing. The AFP don’t go around tasering people for the fun of it. I had pretty simple rule….if we even considered calling the police on a passenger then he was not travelling with us. I did not care if he suddenly decided to do what he was told. Problems on the ground never get better in flight. He was asked or told to move. He refused. He can now get off. The time it will cost getting rid of him will almost certainly be less than the angst that will be caused in flight.

Oh, and most of the prune posters are neither pilots nor cabin crew.

 

[kangarooflyer88]

There is an entire chapter in this book that is missing. The AFP don’t go around tasering people for the fun of it.

I would be inclined to agree with you here. Tasering seems extreme particularly in a confined environment like an airplane cabin where it is possible (potentially likely) to get the wrong person with the tase. I'm not so sure about the individual being placed on the no fly list as I don't think such a list exists for domestic air travel in Australia (and even if it did it wouldn't matter since one could book a ticket as Ronald McDonald and fly that way)

I had pretty simple rule….if we even considered calling the police on a passenger then he was not travelling with us. I did not care if he suddenly decided to do what he was told. Problems on the ground never get better in flight. He was asked or told to move. He refused. He can now get off. The time it will cost getting rid of him will almost certainly be less than the angst that will be caused in flight.

Oh, and most of the prune posters are neither pilots nor cabin crew.

Considering the forum is literally called the Professional Pilots Rumour Network I find that hard to believe. Surely the forum checks the credentials of every pilot who signs up for the forum.

 

[justinbrett]

I would be inclined to agree with you here. Tasering seems extreme particularly in a confined environment like an airplane cabin where it is possible (potentially likely) to get the wrong person with the tase. I'm not so sure about the individual being placed on the no fly list as I don't think such a list exists for domestic air travel in Australia (and even if it did it wouldn't matter since one could book a ticket as Ronald McDonald and fly that way)

Considering the forum is literally called the Professional Pilots Rumour Network I find that hard to believe. Surely the forum checks the credentials of every pilot who signs up for the forum.

This was a particularly good burn to the OP on PPrune:

Judging from your sensationalist, emotive language and your strategic use of Caps, I have little doubt that you’re a journo looking for some sort of response from an “aviation professional” that you can publish.

 

[harvyk]

The tasering was unfortunate but the video was edited, so we don’t know how many warnings he received.

100%

Forget the video, it's not raw footage, and obviously ch 9 had a narative they where going with.

So discussions about who was in the right is pretty moot.

 

[dajop]

100%

Forget the video, it's not raw footage, and obviously ch 9 had a narative they where going with.

So discussions about who was in the right is pretty moot.

Media will always side with the passenger over Jetstar. Their advertising budget almost certainly isn’t big enough to influence the narrative to be in Jetstar’s favour. Or even towards to influence to be closer to reality .

 

[SeaWolf]

Somewhere, on a JQ flight near you...

 

[jb747]

Considering the forum is literally called the Professional Pilots Rumour Network I find that hard to believe. Surely the forum checks the credentials of every pilot who signs up for the forum.

It has been a point of contention, literally forever, that prune runs no checks at all on the bona fides of posters. My read of most threads is that about half are actually pilots at any level (including flight sims) but only about 25% are actual airline or military pilots. There are quite a few ground engineers, and they often offer good information…though not on flying.

 

[drron]

The original version of the incident I read was that the whole family had moved themselves from their original seats so likely that there was an aggrieved passenger.

As for Australia being a police state I have lived here for 76 years and not once searched. Pulled over for a breath test a few times and once spent a night in the police lockup in Nowra. But that was In University days when hitchhiking to Eden. A terrible afternoon with heavy rain. Asked the policeman where was the cheapest spot to sleep in town so he suggested the lockup. Even got breakfast in the morning.

 

[kangarooflyer88]

One interesting aspect of the video was that the booted passenger said they would leave the plane if the police came on board. When the police came on board and asked them to leave, they first started questioning under what authority and when that didn't work resisted being moved. Again, looking at those clips it's probably not enough on its own to conclude either way. I am guessing the AFP would not have body worn cameras which I suspect would make any prosecution tricky.

Media will always side with the passenger over Jetstar.

Media will always side with passengers since they represent the target audience and they can't survive on native advertising alone.

It has been a point of contention, literally forever, that prune runs no checks at all on the bona fides of posters. My read of most threads is that about half are actually pilots at any level (including flight sims) but only about 25% are actual airline or military pilots. There are quite a few ground engineers, and they often offer good information…though not on flying.

Heck even if half the posters were pilots at some level, and a quarter were ground engineers and others with aviation experience that wouldn't be bad either, as there are a number of aviation stories where neither a pilot or a FA could answer the question but a good engineer could answer. However, I reckon such a favourable ratio is unlikely on such a forum, especially with no vetting.

The original version of the incident I read was that the whole family had moved themselves from their original seats so likely that there was an aggrieved passenger.

That may very well be. One key thing travellers need to know (particularly those who travel infrequently) is that you listen to what the crew tell you. It's not a suggestion or point that could be debated. The bloody plane needs to depart on time and there are reasons why crew do what they do and they don't have time to give a one hour lecture on why that is to appease some FOTSG.

 

[Guvner]

Upon reflection I guess being banned from Jetstar isn't such a bad outcome for him.

 

[justinbrett]

Upon reflection I guess being banned from Jetstar isn't such a bad outcome for him.

Much worse than that, he's got a court order banning him flying any airline (including VA) until his trial in July.

 

[kangarooflyer88]

Much worse than that, he's got a court order banning him flying any airline (including VA) until his trial in July.

He may have such a court order, but I doubt his alter ego Ronald McDonald has one!

 

[Hvr]

He may have such a court order, but I doubt his alter ego Ronald McDonald has one!

Oh, I can see the headlines now when he is caught trying to fly under a false name. Definitely not getting a happy meal.
Then his name might be changed to Terry Wrist.

 

[Happy Dude]

This is after a group of nut jobs occupied our nation's capital for several weeks honking their horn at all hours of the day including at night, preventing people from entering their work, shutting down several US borders, etc. Had this happened in Canberra, I can assure you this wouldn't have lasted more than a couple of hours with many of them facing serious charges.

-RooFlyer88

I can assure you that you'd be wrong. We had many so called "Freedom" protests here including the Convoy to Canberra nitwits who unlawfully occupied spaces around town causing general disruption and cancellations for many weeks around Feb 2022. Some were eventually moved on by police forcibly. I don't think the charges were any more serious than for illegal camping.

 

[oz_mark]

He may have such a court order, but I doubt his alter ego Ronald McDonald has one!

Maybe so, but it is illegal to fly under a false name. So I doubt he would want to add to his trouble