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Comment by BillyTheMage | Hacker News Reader

I don't see why they need to land immediately for every little fist fight. Very abusive parent vibes. Like okay you made a little mistake, now we have to ruin the whole day because of it; i.e. "look what you made me do". Didn't anyone learn anything from the failure of zero-tolerance policies in schools?

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You may find that it's particularly difficult to get police onto the plane to arrest the people who are beating the crap out of each other and take them down to the station if the plane is in the air. An in-air brawl is obviously dangerous for the participants, but also anyone nearby who might catch a leg or elbow, or for the flight crew whose job descriptions don't include physically restraining violent passengers.

A horse "getting loose" at 31,000 feet is definitely an emergency, what if one of the pilots had witnessed how loose the horse had become?? They would probably have been stunned and lost control of the aircraft immediately. Horse was also described as "in difficulty" and in need of a vet - might have pulled a muscle like Uncle Harold at the reception after a few champagne toasts.

Let me introduce you to a major terrorist incident that involved using planes as guided missiles, and then you can decide whether or not the aviation community takes in-flight violence too seriously.

This is the Hacker News version of an end user going "I don't get what's so hard about programming."

I'm not sure that tracks (although this entire thread has nothing to do with the article). I'm having difficulty coming up with a hypothetical situation involving a "fist fight" that ends in a "major terrorist incident", but only if the plane isn't turned around. I'd love to hear one.

I think the "zero tolerance" analogy may be a good one, in that it absolves people on the scene from making decisions.

If you think a qualified airline pilot in command, who in all likelihood has significant military as well as civilian aviation experience, needs to be "absolved from having to make decisions," you're just broadcasting your ignorance of the subject for the entire world to see.

"Programming isn't that hard; my little brother is good with computers, too." That's the level you're talking at here.

> a qualified airline pilot in command

I'll happily recant that statement if you're asserting that the pilot evaluates the situation, and doesn't just follow codified airline policy. "Absolves" was a bad choice of wording in any case, perhaps I should say "prevents from using their own judgment."

It sounds like you're in the industry. I'm genuinely curious, what sort of thinking goes into evaluating whether to turn the flight around after an altercation? I understand the idea of minimizing harm to passengers and flight crew, but you mentioned "using planes as guided missiles," so it sounds like the consideration is more about the plane crashing?

Did you even read the title?

A horse is loose on an airplane.

Loose cargo can be a serious issue for any aircraft, especially when 1,000 - 2,000 pounds of it is potentially panicked and independently mobile.

The end of the article mentions a fist fight.

no. no it doesn't. are you hallucinating or is some dark pattern showing us different articles?

> In July, a mid-air brawl between passengers caused one flight to make a landing 700 miles away from its intended destination.

got it now. thanks. i mentally blocked this noise at the end of the article as ads, noise, idk.

CRAPPY journalism, btw.

I know it's frowned upon to ask people if they read the article but, uh, did you even read the headline?

> I know it's frowned upon to ask people if they read the article but, uh, did you even read the headline?

Uhm...the evidence suggests that he probably read more of the article than you did. :-) After talking about the horse mentioned in the headline the article goes on to mention that unscheduled landings are fairly common and gives some examples--one of which is due to a fight breaking out.

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