FAA to investigate cell phone use on Atlanta flight -- http://www.ajc.com/news/atlanta/faa-to-investigate-cell-202143.html
Posted to FR at http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2399187/posts post 8 by Cindy
FAA to investigate cell phone use on Atlanta flightINTERESTING, an account by a woman passenger is that it wasn't a cell phone, it was a camera and the poor innocent passenger couldn't understand English, it was all just a misunderstanding.By Alexis Stevens and Kristi Swartz
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The Federal Aviation Administration is investigating what led to the two-and-a-half hour delay of a Tuesday flight from Atlanta to Houston, an agency spokeswoman said Wednesday morning.
An AirTran spokesman said a man traveling with a group Tuesday afternoon refused to turn his cell phone off before takeoff. But the woman sitting behind the man said it wasn't a phone at all, and feels the entire incident was the result of poor communication.
"He was not talking on a cell phone, it was a camera," said Nancy Deveikis of Marietta. "He was looking at pictures." A flight attendant asked the man twice to turn off the device, Deveikis said. But it was clear the man did not speak English, she said. Although the man was traveling with others, the rest of the group was seated throughout the plane.
When the man did not respond to the flight attendant, she took the camera from him, Deveikis said. Deveikis, who presented ajc.com with her boarding pass for the flight, said she watched the exchange from directly behind the man in seat 28A and the female flight attendant.
"She grabbed it from his hand and basically said I'll be holding this until you get off the plane,"Deveikis said.
But her account does not square with what others observed and reported. She was in the front, didn't see as much, but hard to believe she was unaware of other interactions as other passengers seemed to be.
.....“Passengers are required to follow instructions of the flight attendants," regional FAA spokeswoman Kathleen Bergen said. AirTran reported the incident to the FAA, Bergen said.The federal Transportation Security Administration will not handle the incident, saying it is a customer-service issue between the passenger and the airline, a TSA spokesman said.......
"Just one flight attendant snowed everyone into believing she had an irate passenger," Deveikis said.
Still, airline officials contend the right action was taken.
“It’s a fine line that we have to play,” White said. “Is there any safety or security reason to bring the plane back? Yes, there was a safety reason.”
White declined to identify the passenger. No charges were filed. And, for AirTran, the case is closed.
“Once we determine there is no other problem, it’s our responsibility to get everyone back on and get the plane taken off as quickly as we can,” White said.