Travel News

Icarus Award: Wrong Place, Wrong Era & Just Plain Wrong

Locations in this article:  Amsterdam, Netherlands Dallas, TX Dubai, United Arab Emirates Houston, TX Miami, FL Phoenix, AZ

Would you ever love an airline enough to name your child after its flight code? This week, baby EK was named after Emirates Airlines and we think the airline and its team earned it. You know who didn’t earn such an honor….United. Find out why alongside some misplaced travel failures and one heartwarming account in Lily J. Kosner’s Icarus Awards.

Bombs Away

World War II may be well into the past, but its bombs were very much a part of the present this week.  At the start of the week, a WWII bomb detonated in Munich, causing several buildings to be evacuated. Then, on Wednesday,  Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport was partially evacuated when airport construction workers discovered a suspected WWII bomb in trenches near the pier, located near the airport’s main terminal. Flights were delayed until bomb disposal experts could be called in to take control of the situation.

Sex Toy Scars

An alleged incident on a May 2011 Continental Airlines flight is now the subject of a lawsuit.  Christopher Bridgeman and Martin Borger were traveling back from Costa Rica to Norfolk, Virginia, when the couple had a 90-minute layover in Houston. In George Bush Intercontinental Airport, Bridgeman and Borger claimed their baggage, cleared customs and then rechecked their bags. That’s when trouble started. At the baggage carousel in Virginia, the men found that a private sex toy had been taken from inside their bag and taped to the outside, which was also covered in a greasy, smelly substance. According to the lawsuit, the incident has caused the couple severe emotional anguish for which they are seeking an unspecified amount in damages. United Continental released a statement that there is no evidence for the allegations according to their investigations and the airline plans to vigorously defend itself.

Little Baby Flight Code

En route back from Dubai to Manila, Filipino resident Nedz had a early surprise. Just 27 weeks pregnant, Nedz went into pre-term labor on an Emirates flight. Assisted by two nurses who were on board, Nedz successfully delivered a baby boy in the restroom of the plane. The pilot then made an emergency landing in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam to get the baby and his mother to the hospital, where the baby was named EK, Emirates flight code. The mother is in stable condition, but EK is in critical care.

Bad Seat Mate

The lawsuit isn’t the only blight on United this week. On August 21, Bawer Aksal was arrested and has now been indicted for sexual abuse on a United Airlines flight from Phoenix to Newark. Aksal faces a maximum sentence of life in prison after being caught with his hand inside the shirt and pants of his female seatmate. Aksal has to settle his $100,000 bail before an additional hearing will occur in the case.

Dolphin’s D’Oh

The Miami Dolphins just let Chad “Ochocinco” Johnson go following a head-butting arrest, and now the whole team is in the headlines. On Thursday morning, the team was en route home after a 30-13 loss against the Dallas Cowboys. Taxing away, the team’s American Airlines charter plane clipped the tail of a MD-80 plane parked at the airport thereby damaging the 767 charter plane’s winglet. A few hours later, the airline brought in a new plane and the team was back on course. Local 10 station in Miami joked on their website, “[it] was the biggest hit the Dolphins had all night.

Heard of a Cell Phone, Mom & Dad? won the last Icarus Award. See all the winners and losers in the Icarus archives, then vote in this week’s poll:

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By Lily J. Kosner for PeterGreenberg.com

Related Links: MSNBC, CNN, Huffington Post, USA Today, CNN