Stupid People do Stupid Things

Man jumps off taxiing airliner

The unidentified man opened a door and slid down an inflatable emergency chute.

By David Perlmutt
dperlmutt@charlotteobserver.com

A 26-year-old passenger on board an American Airlines jet from Charlotte to Dallas opened a door and slid down an inflatable emergency chute Tuesday as the aircraft waited to taxi to its gate at Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport. [I'll hold my comments off for a while. This could get interesting.]

The man, who had not been identified Tuesday night, reportedly ran into the first class section of American Airlines Flight 1343 and opened the exit door, according to an airport advisory. The plane, an MD-80[Shown here.], had just arrived from Charlotte/Douglas International Airport about 1 p.m. and was parked on a ramp when the incident happened. [So it got to it's destination, the man just couldn't wait...]

After opening the door, the man deployed the inflatable slide and slid down to the Aircraft Operations Area, where he was held by American fleet service clerks until airport public safety officers took him into custody. [After being detained, the man tried to convince authorities his name was Jack Bauer and he works for CTU, the then blabbered on about a terrorist plot involving ping pong balls, bubble wrap, and AirForce One, this only got him into more trouble.]

The incident caused no delays to the airport's other flight operations. [But what turns out to be a very funny spectacle.]

Charlotte historian Pamela Grundy was on the plane, sitting several rows back from the passenger who jumped. The man, she said, was with his mother, who tried to stop him.

“I wasn't really paying attention until there was a scuffle upfront,” Grundy said. “The pilot called for passengers to come and help. Several guys moved to the front, but then someone said, ‘Well, he's jumped out.' You could see him running on the tarmac.”

The plane sat for several minutes while workers closed the door so the plane could continue on to gate A37 at Terminal C. The man's mother returned to her seat and asked a flight attendant to apologize to the other passengers for her son's actions. The attendant did, Grundy said.

“Then the jokes started and they made me sick,” she said. “He's clearly a troubled human being, with people who care about him. Who knows what's going to happen to him.” [Four cookies to whoever comes up with the funniest joke. I imagine they were something like, "Looks like he fell asleep when he was supposed to be Hijaking the plane..."]

By 4:15 p.m., the man had been questioned by FBI agents and taken to a hospital [Read: Asylum] for evaluation, an airport spokesman said. The spokesman didn't know if the man was from Charlotte, or why he jumped from the plane. [I guess they should have just believed that he was Jack Bauer...]

“That's what the authorities are trying to determine,” the spokesman said. [Popular theories: He watched Fox's new show, Fringe. He's watched three too many episodes of 24. He is a contestant on The Apprentice, and he didn't want to be fired.]