[nagdu] Service Dog's 'evacuation' forces emergency landing ofUS Airways flight to PHL

[Cindy Ray via nagdu]

In most of the stories I have heard about people being subdued on flights, it doesn’t seem there has been nearly as much interviewing of passengers. Of course, I will admit that part of the problem here is empathy for the dog handler because I have been in similar situations. In an airport my dog, who was nervous and thus stimulated, pooped as we were rushing through the airport to try to get her out. On the radio they said, “You’d better send a clean up crew; the dog is leaving a trail.” But of course from the reporter’s perspective, if this plane, which was going to Philadelphia, had to make an unscheduled landing in Kansas City, that is a story, especially with the situations that have come up on flights lately. As for the comments, I’m not sure they were terribly in compassionate. But as a dog handler, I can just imagine going to fly and well meaning flight service representatives being condescending about does your dog need to use the bathroom. Will he be OK on the flight. Perhaps my own first reaction was overreacting, and I probably wouldn’t have even heard about the story if Ginger hadn’t posted it. Still … 

Cindy Ray
cindyray at gmail.com

On May 31, 2014, at 2:24 PM, Elizabeth Campbell via nagdu <nagdu at nfbnet.org> wrote:

> Hello Craig,
> 
> Thank you for your post to the list.
> I was about to write something along the same lines, but you beat me to it.
> (smile)
> As reporters, we often face what I call no-win situations. We will get
> criticized for not reporting the reason for an emergency landing, and we
> will face criticism for reporting the reason why a plane had to make an
> emergency landing.
> I feel for everyone involved, and I'm sure the dog's owner wouldn't have
> taken the dog onboard if he/she knew that the animal was sick.
> The airlines are under a great deal of scrutiny these days, but people want
> to know what is going on whether the story is about a near miss or an
> emergency landing.
> 
> Best
> 
> Liz
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: nagdu [mailto:nagdu-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of Craig Heaps via
> nagdu
> Sent: Saturday, May 31, 2014 1:09 PM
> To: NAGDU Mailing List, the National Association of Guide Dog Users
> Subject: Re: [nagdu] Service Dog's 'evacuation' forces emergency landing
> ofUS Airways flight to PHL
> 
> As a professional journalist for nearly forty years and a guide dog user
> myself, I could not disagree more with those who criticize this as a story.
> 
> It is a legitimate news story.  It's an extraordinary event on a form of
> transportation used by millions of people every year in the United States. 
> It is the fact that it happens so seldom that makes it news.  It has the
> element of "Can you imagine being in that situation?" that also makes it
> worthy of coverage.  I thought the reporter did an excellent job of putting
> the incident in perspective by including the guy from The Seeing Eye and the
> comments from the airline spokesperson saying it's extremely rare.
> 
> I am sympathetic with those passengers who found the smell overwhelming. 
> It's not the atmosphere they expected when they paid good money for their
> tickets.
> 
> I can understand the defensiveness of some guide dog users who want to lash
> out at the journalistic decision to cover this incident.  But they sound
> like the people I had to deal with every day who didn't want some event or
> another "publicized" (reporters hate that word) and tried to argue it was
> stupid to think it was a legitimate story.  Think about the last time you
> heard the story of some belligerent drunk on a plane who had to be
> restrained with the help of other passengers.  Another disturbing, but rare,
> event.  Was covering that also stupid?
> 
> Sorry for the semi rant.
> 
> Craig and Chase, who I hope never poops in an airliner
> 
> 
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