MH128: How airlines have come to depend on passengers' bravery in high-risk security situations

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This was published 6 years ago

MH128: How airlines have come to depend on passengers' bravery in high-risk security situations

By Anthony Dennis
Updated

Another unruly and threatening passenger, another redirected flight, another bunch of brave passengers. It's become an all-too-familiar scenario of air travel, and an increasingly concerning one, and not just because of the behaviour of disorderly and sometimes violent passengers.

Such incidents like this week's disturbing events aboard Malaysia Airlines flight MH128, forced to return to Melbourne after a seemingly mentally-ill man had to be restrained by crew and passengers, remain blessedly rare. But law-abiding passengers are increasingly becoming substitute security details for airlines and aviation authorities.

They commendably help to forcibly subdue and restrain fellow passengers at the risk of injury or even death to themselves and other parties. You, and I hope me, would likely respond in the same way in similar fraught circumstances, acting in consort with fellow passengers as well as cabin crew.

A picture tweeted by one of the passengers appears to show the man face-down on the floor after being handcuffed.

A picture tweeted by one of the passengers appears to show the man face-down on the floor after being handcuffed.Credit: Twitter: @saroki19

But, really, which other industry so regularly allows, and possibly expects and entreats, its customers to act in such a way that's become akin a kind of citizen's arrest at 30,000 feet? A citizen's arrest is, after all, a notoriously legal grey area on terra firma, but seemingly less so in the air.

In December last year, the American singer Richard Marx restrained a fellow dangerously disruptive passenger on a Korean Air flight between Hanoi and Seoul. Marx described the incident as "chaotic and dangerous" and alleged that the cabin crew were "completely ill-trained" for such an event.

"[They were] clueless and not trained as to how to restrain this psycho and he was only initially subdued when I and a couple of other male passengers intervened," he said. "Korean Air should be sanctioned for not knowing how to handle a situation like this without passenger interference."

Heavily armed police enter the plane.

Heavily armed police enter the plane.Credit: Andrew Leoncelli

See also: What should you do if there's a disruptive passenger on your plane?

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Such courage exhibited by passengers intervening in such adverse events can probably be traced to the "nothing to lose" intervention by those aboard United Airlines flight 93 on September 11, 2001. Passengers were thought to have bravely fought back against the Islamic terrorist hijackers aboard. A resultant "we're not going to take it" mentality has understandably evolved among peaceable passengers, even in less lethal circumstances such as MH128 turned out to be.

But what's the solution? It's impossible (or is it?) to install sky marshals on every flight to help police passenger misbehaviour and to what extent can a flight crew acting without assistance, in a confined space, be expected to expose themselves to the dangers posed by the unruly and threatening passenger?

Security personnel board flight MH128 after it returned to Melbourne.

Security personnel board flight MH128 after it returned to Melbourne.Credit: Andrew Leoncelli

In an Australian Government and Australian Institute of Criminology report, Responding to unruly passengers: The Australian context, published last year, the problem is described, given the huge volume of passengers flown by airlines each year, as "a small but consistent issue".

Although the detailed and constructive report highlights the risk of harm to other passengers "either directly from the unruly passenger or indirectly directly due to [the] proximity if an altercation occurs", something is missing.

There's no real discussion of the dangers and consequences for fellow passengers deciding or being asked to forcibly intervene in the event of an on-board unruly and threatening passenger.

Surely it can't be long before someone is seriously injured or killed in one of these high-altitude fracas, or at least is charged with applying excessive force in the carrying out of such an act. There must be a better way but it will be a difficult solution to formulate and enact.

Anthony Dennis is a Fairfax Media travel editor.

See also: Terrorism: the 'new normal' for today's traveller

See also: Terrorist attacks on tourists: Advice for travellers

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