This week on Weird and Wacky Wednesdays: Naked Travel Edition
This week on Weird and Wacky Wednesdays, we’re looking at the summer travel season’s least fashionable trend: getting naked in public. Whether it’s 40,000 feet in the air or sprinting through a major airport terminal, some travellers are taking the phrase “dress down for the flight” too literally.
Lavatory Dancer missing meal service
First up, we head to British Airways Flight 282 from San Francisco to London. On May 25, a 41-year-old flight attendant stripped naked and began dancing in a business-class lavatory mid-flight. His colleagues, unable to find him during meal service, discovered him undressed and incoherent. They subdued him and got him into a pair of first-class pyjamas, then restrained him until landing. He was arrested at Heathrow and is under investigation for being unfit for duty. In the UK, this type of conduct could result in charges under the Civil Aviation Act or the Sexual Offences Act, depending on intent. And of course, it’s grounds for permanent dismissal from airline employment.
Southwest Airlines in-flight entertainment?
Next, we head to Houston’s Hobby Airport, where in March a Southwest Airlines flight bound for Phoenix was forced to return to the gate after a woman began stripping and banging on the flight deck door. She was detained for a mental health evaluation. I’m starting to wonder if altitude is a factor that may affect one’s ability to think. Of course, it may be a substance of some sort. Flying Southwest could be enough to push one over the edge. I did it once and I’ll never do it again.
Keep the clothes on when emotions run hot
Finally, in perhaps the most chaotic case, a woman ran naked through Terminal D at Dallas Fort Worth International Airport, screaming, smashing phones, and reportedly stabbing a fellow traveller. Police found her covered in blood and arrested her for aggravated assault with a deadly weapon. She now faces serious felony charges in Texas, where indecent exposure and public lewdness are separate misdemeanours—but assault with a weapon is a third-degree felony, punishable by 2 to 10 years in prison.
So as the temperature rises, remember: airport security may check for liquids, gels, and aerosols—but they’re also on the lookout for passengers losing their clothes and their composure.
