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A Fearful Flyer
We were flying from Dayton to Kalamazoo. Shortly after the gear was retracted, I received a call from the Lead Flight Attendant advising that one of our passengers had attempted to leave the aircraft. I inquired as to when and was told that we were probably doing around 100 knots on takeoff roll when the lady tried to get off. I asked how far she got and was told that she made it to the first class curtain when she fell down and was assisted back to her seat. Apparently she was not hurt, and the request was made to be met by a supervisor upon arrival. After gate arrival, I smelled smoke and believed that we had a smoker that couldn’t wait to get off the aircraft. As I entered the cabin, the deplaning passengers gave me looks like they couldn’t believe what had happened. As it turned out the culprit was the same lady who had tried to get off earlier. She had already left the aircraft in the company of a supervisor. As I learned later, the lady was a fearful flyer. After she had tried to leave our aircraft during takeoff, she had been cutoff from alcohol so she tried to calm her fears with cigarettes making a bee line for the aft lavatory during landing. The Flight Attendant stopped her and got the lady back into a seat. The lady then proceeded to try to light a cigarette but was so unsteady that she missed the cigarette with the lighter and caught her hair on fire. Passengers were screaming and trying to throw blankets over the lady’s head while the Flight Attendant was grabbing the CO2 fire extinguisher. What I had smelled was not cigarette smoke but burnt hair. Awful!!
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John North - Piedmont Airlines - B-737-200 Captain - Early 90's
| 1/7/2004
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