South Korea’s unarmed air travel culture seems to be an impolite one, creating a dangerous situation for crew and passengers alike. Incidents of violence against cabin crew members are on the rise, and follows a somewhat high profile event where a KAL cabin crew was unable to contain an unruly passenger without some assistance. As Reuters reports:
In South Korea, the number of unlawful acts committed aboard airplanes has more than tripled over the past five years, according to government data.
South Korean police on Tuesday sought an arrest warrant for the passenger involved in the latest incident, identified by his surname Lim, on charges including inflicting injury to the crew and a passenger on the Vietnam to South Korea flight.
An airline spokesman said the man had consumed two and a half shots of whiskey during the flight.
The incident came to light when Marx said on Facebook and Twitter that he helped subdue “a psycho passenger attacking crew members and other passengers,” accusing crew members of being “ill-trained” and “ill-equipped” to handle the “chaotic and dangerous event”.
Korean Air Lines has decided to arm their cabin crews with stun guns to to handle disturbed, drunk, dangerous or otherwise unruly passengers. The airline has come to the same realization that polite society can be but a thin veneer. It doesn’t take much to scratch that layer away to reveal the violent truth about how badly people can and sometimes do react. In those situations it makes perfect sense to stack the deck and bring a (stun) gun to a fist fight.
Many gun owners use the bromide “when seconds count the police are just minutes away” to justify keeping and bearing arms. That argument holds true when the nearest airport is hours away on an overseas flight. When people get violent at 35,000 feet all you have to rely upon is yourself, cooperative passengers and crew, and your equipment. The better the equipment, the better.
It was my understanding that they already had stun guns, but the restrictions against using them were so severe that the flight attendants in this case chose to tie the guy up with rope instead. They did have a taser, they just didn’t know how to use it.
“Marx’s wife Daisy Fuentes, a TV host and model who was with the singer during the flight from Hanoi to Incheon near Seoul, said on Instagram that crew members “didn’t know how to use the taser & they didn’t know how to secure the rope around him (he got loose from their rope restraints 3 times).””
So my understanding of the new change is that Korean Air is taking the shackles off and allowing the flight attendants to use what they already have, more readily, and will do a better job of training them.
My only question is ‘why haven’t all the airlines been doing this for years?’ Those could have come in handy on a pleasant Tuesday morning in September 2001.
+1
Pilots of planes carrying anything at all for the U.S. government used to be required to be armed. Somewhere along the line we got that backwards, and it’s been downhill since.
“… and it’s been downhill since.”
That depends on your mindset. If your primary objective is feeling good, and it feels good to have stun-guns removed from airplanes, then everything has been getting better. That’s Progress!
Notice the upper-case “P” in “Progress” eluding to the Progressive moniker. That is a quintessential example of a Progressive “improvement”. Feelings are paramount … facts be damned.
“An airline spokesman said the man had consumed two and a half shots of whiskey during the flight.”
I have heard some Asians are unable to metabolize ETOH the way westerners do.
The cabin crews already have zip-tie cuffs and duct tape in their airborne ‘arsenal’, so why not add a stunner?
Using a stout pepper spray in an enclosed cabin wouldn’t be very wise…
Once the rascal is subdued, one of those dog collars made for invisible fences would come in handy.
Or one of those exit doors….
“Korean Air Lines to Arm Cabin Crews . . . with Stun Guns”
-They HAD tasers (not ‘stun guns’) and one of the flight crew can be seen pointing it at the man during the flight. An armed society is not necessarily a polite one.
The article is about how supposedly they’re going to be allowed to more easily use them though.
“An armed society is not necessarily a polite one.”
I would argue that a person or society is not truly armed if they cannot actually use their armaments, which was the apparent case on that Korean airlines flight.
Is it raciss! if I think the KAL crew should all be black belts in Tae Kwon Do?
I spent a year living in Korea. My experience was the Koreans are BRUTAL when it comes to discipline.
The biggest cultural gap I encountered was how amazingly rude Koreans are when it comes to standing in a line- they just don’t do it. Train to Pusan is supposed to be a zombie movie and it just reminded me of every time I took a train.
If the Government gives the Air Crews permission to use the stun gun- you can guarantee the crew will go overboard with the berserk use of it at the slightest provaction.
You put one or two ROK Army or ROK Marines on those planes and the passengers will behave like choir boys.
Koreans are VERY rude. I used to have a job where I interacted with them on a daily basis and after that experience I give them little leeway when it comes to stuff like cutting in line for example, I call them on their shit everytime.
And when the nice attendant says, “Now put that tray up…please.” do it.
We need to invent a Wraith stunner for these situations.
Firing a stunning gun or a teaser in an airliner and missing the intended target could be very bad. It doest take much voltage to short out a computer that is poorly grounded.
Only takes a hit to the wrong place.
Pretty impossible for that to happen.
I passed a million airline flying miles many years ago. I may be at two million now, I don’t know. I have seen some out of control passengers. A common contributing factor is booze served by the airline. I think the airlines serving booze should stop. Not only does it contribute to bad behavior, but it impairs people in case of an emergency egress of the aircraft. Do you want the guy in the exit row who has to open the escape hatch half-in-the-bag?
I realize that passengers can still bring on their own hooch, but there is no sense in the airlines creating a problem and then complaining about it.
Any passenger should have an right to carry real gun”s on airplanes.
If you see germanwings (no gun zone) white armed people on board they haved an chance to open the locked cockpit door and shoot the bastard (andreas lubiz) to hell and get control back over the airplane.
You have brought up a very great details, thankyou for the post.
Comments are closed.