VS401 - Rerouted via KWI - Sept 8th 2012

Hi all,
I was wondering what happened to VS401 today as it seems it stopped in KWI en route ... Any technical problems or medical emergencies ?

Hey,
It was a medical emergency.

G

Thanks a lot Gpik. Hope the person is fine.

Would VS bill the person who had the emergency for the cost of making the diversion?

I ask because I saw an article a couple of days ago, saying that Thomson had billed a woman who was drunk and violent causing them to land the plane to eject her and have her arrested.

Completely different circumstances, yes, but it will still cost VS money.

Not for a medical emergency as that could be seen as 'no fault' plus the pilot will be getting medical advice from the ground but many airlines will bill passengers who cause diversions due to their behaviour.

In many cases the local authorities will also make a legal order as part of court proceedings.

I recall a couple of fairly recent cases in Canada where this has happened.

e.g. in this instance the pax was fined £6,000 for the crime and £8k in damages to Virgin (plus a one way fare from Gander to the UK which is not cheap!)

So this cost VS quite a bit of money, the plane must have had a fair amount of fuel to dump as it had only travelled about 500 miles.

Whilst our thoughts are with the sick passenger and hope for a full and speedy recovery, when they are taken so ill, so early in the flight, and in this instance it maust have been within the first thirty minutes, is there a case that although it could have been a sudden heart attack that could not possibily have been forseen which would have been very sad for the passenger, it could have been a case of someone too sick to travel and should never have been on board in the first place.

I recall a case on VS301, where on the action of a Doctor on board, (and one of our "correspondants" ) saved a costly diversion where he said he felt the lady was not fit enough to have started her journey??