Smokers on a Plane

The Bellend of the Month for December 2017 is Valerie Curbelo, who was arrested for an incident on a Southwest Airlines flight on the 10th. The airline says it all started with a cigarette that Curbelo was smoking in the bathroom somewhere between Portland and Sacramento, and according to the airline, she had gone so far as to tamper with the smoke detector. So a flight attendant barged in on the woman - this at least got her out of the bathroom, but it did little else to improve the situation on Flight 2943. Curbelo then proceeded to rip an oxygen mask out of the ceiling as crew forced her back to her seat, and indeed, a mask appears to dangle in the plane aisle as seen in a video of the ensuing tirade. “I have a destination for myself!” she yells as a passenger behind her looks up from his tablet and stares. She is wearing a hat, sunglasses, and overcoat, and collecting her belongings as if to disembark the midair flight. “I swear, if you don’t . . . land,” the woman says, as a flight attendant blocks her from the aisle, “I will f—ing kill everybody on this f—ing plane!” “You will not,” the attendant says. “You will not.” “I will!” A scuffle in the aisle ends the video. The man who took it told reporters that the woman had to be restrained by passengers and crew for the next half-hour. Meanwhile, the airline said, pilots called in an emergency and landed in Sacramento, somehow more or less on schedule. Sheriff’s deputies were waiting at the airport, where they arrested Curbelo on a felony charge of making a death threat and jailed her on $75,000 bail. Next time, I just wouldn't smoke on board.