Stuck In A Seat

April 27, 2009

in Portly Stories

This happened to a friend, Carl. He took his window seat. All of the passengers watched as a rather large gent walked down the aisle carrying two seat belt extenders. Yes, he sat next to Carl, pushing himself into the narrow seat with great difficulty and pinning Carl against the window. Carl pressed the stewardess call button and complained that it was difficult to breath with this large man pressing him into the window. The stewardess tried to re-seat the man, but he was stuck and could not get out of his seat. The captain came back, there was a discussion with the captain suggesting that it was only a short flight, less than an hour flying time, so the best solution would be to handle the matter at their destination so as not to delay the flight.

Against Carl’s feeble protest they took off. (Note to self, never put up a feeble protest when a far more aggressive one is needed.) After landing all of the passengers except for Carl and the fat gent, a work crew came onto the plane and removed the row of seats in front of Carl. They then could push and pull that guy out of the seat. Carl did subsequently complain that it was a gross safety violation and if there had been an emergency that neither he or the other gentleman would be able to leave the plane. For his troubles he did receive one roundtrip ticket.

{ 6 comments… read them below or add one }

Anonymous April 25, 2009 at 6:32 am

I also doubt the veracity of this story. If the flight attendant brought the man's situation to the attention of the captain and the captain knowingly allowed the flight to depart with a person physically stuck in a seat, that's no different from allowing a flight to depart with an unresolved maintenance issue in the eyes of the FAA. If they ever found out about this, the captain (and possibly flight attendant as well) could have his certificate suspended. I don't know anyone who's that reckless with his career or with the lives of passengers, so I call BS on this one.

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benny April 27, 2009 at 3:23 pm

Me too. This story is highly unlikly and is too much of a "friend of a friend" to be near the truth. Two seat expanders? Doubtful a gentleman of these dimsesions would even get in the door let along squeeze into an economy seat. I think they would have more self awareness and go for two seats.

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Anonymous May 1, 2009 at 4:22 pm

Seen lots of clueless fat people, but I'm willing to call BS on this one for safety violation.

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Atari May 2, 2009 at 8:12 pm

Hmh. Odd. While it may be false and I'm not disputing it one way or the other, the story, to me, had enough verisimilitude that I didn't even question it.

I've heard far more unbelievable stories that are true.

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debbie eskew May 25, 2009 at 12:44 am

This didn't happen

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Rob May 27, 2009 at 6:29 pm

Removed the seats? No. Not gonna happen.

Didn't happen. Were you and Carl drinking when the story was shared, and you missed the 'exaggeration' inherent in such a story?

Maybe you mixed it up with another fat story where in fact they had to remove part of the front of a house to get a 1000 pound person out…

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