Posted on 07/20/2025 5:22:39 AM PDT by xxqqzz
Passengers were stranded in a “war zone” at a Maine airport for over 17 hours after their flight was diverted due to a pair of butt-huffing bozos puffing cigarettes on board.
Passengers were stranded in Bangor, Maine, for over 17 hours after their TUI Airways flight from Cancun, Mexico, to London, UK, was diverted due to a couple smoking on board.
“It was like a war zone in a lounge — rows and rows of beds,” passenger Terry Lawrance said while painting the dismal scene in Bangor, Maine (pictured).
“Everybody was fed up,” UK native Terry Lawrance, 66, told Southwest News Service of the unplanned layover, which occurred July 8 on a TUI Airways flight from Cancun, Mexico, to London, UK.
The aircraft had been flying for about an hour when the pilot came on the intercom and announced that two passengers had been “smoking in the toilet” and that he’d have to make an unscheduled landing if they persisted, Lawrance recalled.
“About three hours later, around the border with Canada and he came on to let us know that the plane was being diverted to Bangor, Maine,” recounted Lawrance.
Tracking data on Flightradar24 depicts the plane turning back toward Maine, right after entering Canadian airspace.
The passengers continued smoking despite a warning from the pilot.
They landed around 9:30 p.m. that evening, after which the two smokers were escorted off the plane. “They were obviously drunk, and he basically assaulted his partner,” recalled Lawrance.
The pilot said they’d be on their way after some paperwork was done, not knowing that their short pitstop would turn into the layover from hell.
(Excerpt) Read more at nypost.com ...
I still remember my trips to the lavatory to attend my delightful “Mile high club” meetings
Smoking caused fires that caused the plane to crash or killed the passengers from the fumes?
Nonsense.
It was banned because busy-body Karens complained. The airlines knuckled under from pressure from the usual pack of pinko problem-purveyors.
Airline seats used to have ashtrays in the armrests.
They should add this to the mandatory safety chat given by the cabin crew before each flight: “Please do not smoke in the lavatories or we will divert to Bangor, Maine, and you will be held on the ground for over for 17 hours.”
Let’s see: Bangor Maine or London, England or Cancun, Mexico... I’d choose Bangor... The best of the 3...
Times have changed. The first flight I ever took was on August 28, 1961, aboard a United Airlines DC-8 from Denver to Chicago. When we boarded, the stewardess handed little packets of cigarettes to every passenger, even the children.
A decade later, on August 2, 1971, I was flying to Germany to spend a year over there, and the flight from Los Angeles landed in Bangor to refuel. In the terminal, live lobsters were for sale. I figured I would pick one up if I returned a year later via Bangor, but we stopped at Hartford, Conn. instead.
That reminds me, how goes the war in Bangor, Maine?
Not true, and it was really bad if you were unfortunate enough to be a non-smoker in the first two or three rows in front of the smoking section.
There’s a cost issue involved in allowing smoking onboard.
Filtering the dome costs money the airlines clearly don’t want to spend.
Air quality has been an issue for quite a while.
Allowing smoking would make it obvious.
For a number of reasons I have no issue with refusing to allow it on planes.
Filtering the smoke...
Then the air circulation system apparently didn't do a very good job of keeping that smoke and all those particles out of the faces and lungs of all the non-smoking passengers.
The nonstop from JFK to Sydney next year is 20+ hours.
This year marks the 35th anniversary of the complete ban on inflight smoking on domestic flights in the United States. Major strides against the use of cigarettes onboard commercial aircraft began as early as 1969, when consumer advocate Ralph Nader, among others, called for a smoking ban on airlines. Flight attendant unions in the US, such as the Association of Flight Attendants, were generally in favor of the inflight smoking ban for a variety of reasons related to social comfort as well as safety of the aircraft.
United Airlines became the first to offer a non-smoking cabin section onboard its select aircraft in 1971. In 1994, Delta Air Lines took a major initiative to ban smoking on all domestic and international flights. Airlines in the US gradually adopted inflight smoking bans, beginning with short and domestic flights and extending it to long-haul and international operations. It wasn't until the year 2000 that airlines based in the US banned smoking on all domestic and international flights.
More of the story, at the link.
El Al-pilots are armed. When the plane was about to take off the pilot shot a passenger got off the plane and hopped onto another. It happened in Europe I do believe.
“basically”
I’ve come to hate that word. Also ‘literally’.
90 0% of palne crases are due to pilot errors.
NTSB
Utter BS. I am old enough to rememnber as well. The air inside the cabin was atrocious no matter where you sat. Smokers don't smell the smoke that they pollute to every aspect of everyone else's breathing space.
Bull. Nobody was ever killed from cigarette fumes on an airplane. You’re crazy.
OK, but in what universe does it make sense to divert a flight and land because someone is smoking? That is remarkably stupid. Profoundly stupid.
People who smoke have lost the ability to smell cigarette smoke everywhere, including on their clothes. Smoking definitely dulls the sense of smell.
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