Two days ago, Winona Ryder’s British Airways flight to Heathrow airport was granted priority landing status after Ryder became sick on the plane. Jaunted’s blurb doesn’t say how she got ill. One wonders was it the food? Is this normal for her? What about me or you? Could we get special treatment? Could we get a plane to land before all the others?
I was on a flight once when the plane turned around before it took off because a woman was complaining of being sick. She did keep hitting herself in the face as she was being led to the ambulance that whisked her away. As much as going back to the gate wasn’t a fun picnic, it was a good thing that she was let off the plane. Better that she was hitting herself in the face as she was getting off the plane than miles up in the air.
A quick Google search found these two articles about other diverted flights.
In October, on a United Airlines flight to LA, a flight was diverted to O’Hare International Airport after a dozen or so passengers complained of being sick.
Back in March, a flight from the Dominican Republic to Canada landed in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida after eight passengers became ill.
What isn’t clear is how sick is sick. “I feel sick,” one might say. Does this mean, “I have gas,” “I have a slight headache,” “I feel as if I could hurl all over myself,” or “I think I’m having a heart attack and won’t live to see another day?” Any parent with a child has played twenty questions at times to find out just what ‘sick” means.
The woman I saw hitting herself in the face did say she wasn’t feeling right as rain when she got on the plane. The flight attendant did try to soothe her nerves, but with no luck, thus the diversion.
It seems that diverting a plane because of an engine failure or when the toilet pump is burning would be a much easier call to make. Sick? Kind of vague. And I still wonder, if you’re Winona, could you get that plane to land faster?
Winona did go to the hospital after she got off the plane, but only for a couple of hours.