A reader forwarded me a story from CrownHeights.info which I’m just sort of at a loss of words over. It’s a story about a 22 year old woman who was returning from Israel on Transaero.
One of the (many) problems with the story is that she’s not actually sharing the story, but instead her father, Rabbi Kalman Weinfeld, is recounting it (which I’m sure is really helpful in terms of accuracy). Here’s the story that the father shared:
“My daughter was scheduled to return to New York on Motzai Shabbos from Israel with a stopover in Moscow on Russian airline TransAero. She boarded her flight at Ben Gurion Airport and was seated at the window.
Moments before takeoff, she realized that something was not right with the wing and heard noises that she believed were not regular noises. She first brought this to the attention of the passengers seated beside her, who in turn laughed it off and said it was just noise from the engines.”
Not deterred, she persisted, unbuckling her seatbelt and standing up. The flight attendants, who themselves were already seated and buckled in, instructed her to return to her seat. When she told them her concerns about the plane they too laughed at her. She insisted that she will not fly on the plane if they didn’t check it out.”
After shouting and threatening her, airline officials finally relented and went to investigate her concern.
After returning to the gate, a ground crew began checking over the airplane. At first they said it would be 45 minutes, but nearly two hours later they removed all the passengers from the aircraft, telling them that it did indeed require repairs.
An additional three hours later, the passengers were notified that a replacement plane would be necessary, since the problem was far more severe than originally discovered. Passengers were sent home and told to return the following day.
The issue was so severe that the plane, a Boeing 767, had to be grounded due to the fact that it could have had a mid-air emergency that would have threatened the lives of all those on board, airline officials explained.
The relieved passengers – many of whom had originally expressed irritation at the woman who caused the prolonged delay – came over to her and profusely thanked her for saving their lives.
100% true been there on the flight in the first class product they have never again with them!
If you are looking for hatred do it somewhere else don''t shit where you drink
Thanks for the link AlexS, but how on earth are you NOT seeing IRROPS there? There's a daily B738 operating this flight until the date in question in the story (the 12th) which has NO flight! The day after that it's a B744. To me that says something happened on the 12th and the flight was cancelled.
True you can't really verify the story and even though people on the plane are supposedly backing...
Thanks for the link AlexS, but how on earth are you NOT seeing IRROPS there? There's a daily B738 operating this flight until the date in question in the story (the 12th) which has NO flight! The day after that it's a B744. To me that says something happened on the 12th and the flight was cancelled.
True you can't really verify the story and even though people on the plane are supposedly backing up the girl's claims. And there's no way the airline will admit that's what happened, even if it's true.
But i'm kinda leaning towards the story being true.
Not seeing any IRROPS on FlightAware:
http://flightaware.com/live/flight/TSO312
I'm not buying the story.
The article is accurate. I live in Israel and know 2 people on the plane and it pretty much happened the way the father described. It's not AT ALL a surprise that this aircraft had issues, too many stories and warnings from travelers flying with this company.
Also, both Ben Gurion Airport in Israel as well as TransAero both have issued a formal statement confirming the incident and problem with the aircraft. They were sent...
The article is accurate. I live in Israel and know 2 people on the plane and it pretty much happened the way the father described. It's not AT ALL a surprise that this aircraft had issues, too many stories and warnings from travelers flying with this company.
Also, both Ben Gurion Airport in Israel as well as TransAero both have issued a formal statement confirming the incident and problem with the aircraft. They were sent home because Israel has a no fly time between 2 and 5 am and the situation had extended to this no fly time.
http://crownheights.info/chabad-news/480381/lubavitcher-woman-saves-entire-airplane/
I actually got a big laugh at the comments as our comedian fans of Friends did a good job. Go to the original article and check out the comments. If you haven't watched the old show "Friends", then you won't understand the comments. It's one of the few American shows that has been airing on a continuous basis here in Israel for about 10 years now :).
@David don't be ridiculous, this isn't the Wall Street Journal or any other news site, and Ben isn't a journalist.
Maybe there was something on the wing. Some... Thing.
@David, I think Ben couldn't have been any clearer about his opinion on the story. Not sure how you could remotely perceive that it was presented as fact.
"I think I speak for a lot of us here when I say you’ve gotta start fact checking some of these posts. I get the whole stream of consciousness thing but that doesn’t completely excuse you from journalistic ethics."
@Ben -
It sounds like David thinks you're a journalist who needs to fact check all articles you link to.
It sounds like David doesn't realize this is a blog, where the owner is free...
"I think I speak for a lot of us here when I say you’ve gotta start fact checking some of these posts. I get the whole stream of consciousness thing but that doesn’t completely excuse you from journalistic ethics."
@Ben -
It sounds like David thinks you're a journalist who needs to fact check all articles you link to.
It sounds like David doesn't realize this is a blog, where the owner is free to post his personal musings, stories he finds funny, interesting, amusing, or weird without carrying out interviews with the characters described in the stories to which he links.
Perhaps someone needs to remind David of that.
That's the journalistic part.
No idea where his beef with "ethics" comes in here. Keep up the good work, please.
Transaero says they determined there was an issue that led them to cancel as a result of standard preflight checks, not a hysterical woman.
http://crownheights.info/chabad-news/480607/transaero-airlines-responds-to-viral-story/
Ben,
I think I speak for a lot of us here when I say you've gotta start fact checking some of these posts. I get the whole stream of consciousness thing but that doesn't completely excuse you from journalistic ethics.
@ David -- Fact check what?
I bet it was something to do with the left phalange...
@lucky - isn't the greater question when you are going to fly Transaero Imperial Class?
@ Greg N -- Naturally I will!
@ J - I can only hope you are talking about the Chinese Lady with Montblanc pen.... If so, well done and I got a great laugh. If not, get some help.
Transaero responds:
http://crownheights.info/chabad-news/480607/transaero-airlines-responds-to-viral-story/
The original article has posted an update with a comment from the Israel Airports Authority about the flight, also there are comments that flightaware proves the story happened with the flight being cancelled and the aircraft that was to operate the flight not having operated any flights since that date...
Sorry - correction - it was reported. http://www.israelhayom.co.il/article/274279 (Hebrew), The story seems to be based on a phone call with the happy father, and says that the airline sent a 747 the next day to pick up the passengers, the daughter has already returned to her day job in a NYC school..
I cant find any report of such incident in the local press here, in Israel.
Color me confused as well. Not seeing the hate, just the WTF. Kind of an odd post, though. Has the feel of a "and this one time, at band camp" story.
lol @ J, wtf? I have pretty finely-tuned bigotry detectors and this post didn't set any off.
Why is it relevant that this woman's father is a Rabbi? Was it really necessary to mention that part? Not sure if you are consciously being antisemitic, but regardless the implied bigotry in this posting is pretty thinly veiled.
@ J -- Huh? I was quoting the article: "Her father, Rabbi Kalman Weinfeld, related the story to CrownHeights.info."
Was the "implied bigotry" also "thinly veiled" in the Crown Heights article, or just mine?
@me, not so sure about your comment. To me it sounds like the first commenter was quite legitimately expressing a healthy dose of skepticism. Granted his first sentence had a bit of a sarcastic tone, but we all do it regularly about other countries or entities, and no one considers that hate. You, on the other hand, simply looked at the person's name and immediately labeled it as hateful. I'm not sure which of these would qualify as the real "hate".
this seems fishy... no real media reported this... likely all made up.
Well, at least the rabbi's daughter wasn't traveling on a private jet funded by donations extorted from the synagogue membership...
And Crownheights.info suddenly gets 2 million hits in one day
@Daniel
why would you let facts get in the way of hate?
Ummm, that would be on El Al. Transaero is a Russian airline.
I thought Israel is so concerned about its citizens security that it wont let them board an unsafe aircraft,dont know what to say but am a bit reluctant to believe such major problem wouldnt have been detected by ground maintenance,pilots,or aircraft computer but just by a passenger,and was this mentioned anywhere???hard to believe sorry.