Nov 8, 2005 11:06 pm US/Central
Flight Attendant Fight Stalls Plane To Chicago
by Suzanne Le Mignot
(CBS)
A flight attendant fight Tuesday stalled a Chicago-bound plane for hours.
The flight was supposed to leave Memphis just after 2 p.m., but as Suzanne Le Mignot reports, a feud between employees forced the pilot to take drastic action before heading to Chicago.
"It seemed like a lot of fuss over nothing," said Chip Romine, talking about the argument two Mesaba flight attendants had over his bag. "We were trying to put my bag in the overhead, and it was too big. One young lady came up and was trying to help me get it up, and the other lady came up and grabbed it and said, 'I'll take care of that.'"
Then the two flight attendants started to quarrel some more.
"They just couldn't get on the same page," said passenger Steve Avent. "It just seemed like such a non-issue they were arguing about. You should have been here, you should have been there. I say tomato, you say tomato. It didn't seem to be that big of a deal, but cost us two hours."
Moments after the dispute, the pilot decided it was best for the safety of the passengers to return to the gate and replace the crew.
"We were out on the runway and then they taxied back in again," said passenger Josef Mergili.
All passengers on the full aircraft were told to evacuate the plane and re-board later.
"It wasn't until several people went up the gate once they made us de-plane, that we found out the reason for what happened," said passenger Lance Brown.
For their trouble, some passengers received $35 vouchers toward their next Mesaba trip.
A spokesperson for Mesaba says the company is looking into the incident and will determine what action will be taken against the two flight attendants.
(© MMV, CBS Broadcasting, Inc. All Rights Reserved.)
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