Man removed from UK flight over 'prayer' message on phone

[Razgovory]

I am conflicted on this. On one hand it's an overreaction and an inconvenience for the passenger, clearly. On the other hand I can see how "better safe than sorry" is a policy one would employ when dealing with dozens of people potentially getting killed.

You mean like prohibiting gays from working in a hospital because they have a significantly higher chance of having AIDs?

[Eddie Teach]

If there is a policy for kicking people off the plane, it will be misapplied in some instances. I don't think that's reason enough to not have such a policy.

[Maximus]

If there is a policy for kicking people off the plane, it will be misapplied in some instances. I don't think that's reason enough to not have such a policy.

Yes, and false positives and false negatives are those misapplications. To say that one is categorically better than the other is to imply that they are not misapplications.

[Berkut]

If there is a policy for kicking people off the plane, it will be misapplied in some instances. I don't think that's reason enough to not have such a policy.

Yes, and false positives and false negatives are those misapplications. To say that one is categorically better than the other is to imply that they are not misapplications.

I don't think there is any such implication at all.

Clearly, this is a case where there was a false positive, and there was a misapplication.

Noting that the result of a false positive (inconvenience to someone, possibly serious inconvenience) is categorically better than a false negative (a plane crashes and everyone dies and terrorists get a "win" and all the costs that go with that) is rather obvious, I think, and hardly implies that the former is ok in any and all cases.

[Eddie Teach]

Yes, and false positives and false negatives are those misapplications. To say that one is categorically better than the other is to imply that they are not misapplications.

Which would you prefer, a system where there is 1 false positive and 1 false negative over 1 million passengers, or one where there are 10 false positives and 0 false negatives over the same span? If you pick the second, isn't that implying the false positive is categorically better?

[alfred russel]

More racism.

'Violent' air passenger wanted to do yoga, officials say
Katia Hetter-Profile-Image
By Katia Hetter, CNN
Updated 1814 GMT (0114 HKT) March 31, 2016

(CNN)A United Airlines passenger accused of becoming violently disruptive on a flight from Honolulu to Japan has been charged with interference with the performance of a flight crew.

United Airlines Flight 903 was about an hour and a half into a nearly nine-hour flight to Tokyo's Narita International Airport on Saturday when Hyongtae Pae, 72, refused to follow flight attendants' orders to stay seated, screamed at them in Korean and became violent, according to the criminal complaint and affidavit filed in federal court by the U.S. Attorney's Office on Monday.
Pae told FBI officials that he didn't want to sit while flight attendants served a meal, preferring to do yoga and meditate. He said he had not slept in 11 days.
Pae, who was seen pushing his wife several times, was invited to the aircraft's aft galley to calm down and sat down in the middle of the galley, the complaint stated.
After Pae kept yelling and refused to return to his seat, other passengers -- including five U.S. Marines on the flight -- were asked to help put restraints on him and take him back to his seat.
Pae threatened to kill one of the people placing him in restraints, according to two unnamed Marines interviewed in the affidavit; he also tried to head-butt and bite one of the Marines.
Both Pae and his wife told the FBI, who conducted the interview in Korean with an agency linguist, they knew that they needed to follow the directions of the flight crew but didn't know that disobeying them was illegal.
A United Airlines spokeswoman confirmed that the flight returned to Honolulu due to a disruptive passenger and was met by law enforcement but referred all other questions to local authorities.

This story sucks. If I'm 1.5 hours into a 9 hour flight and some dumbass makes us turn around, I'm not going to be happy. Put the guy in a strait jacket and finish the flight.

[Maximus]

Which would you prefer, a system where there is 1 false positive and 1 false negative over 1 million passengers, or one where there are 10 false positives and 0 false negatives over the same span? If you pick the second, isn't that implying the false positive is categorically better?

Not at all; that just implies that in this particular data set the outcome is the same. To say that more false positives are always better is to say that an optimal solution is to classify everything is positive.

[Eddie Teach]

Which would you prefer, a system where there is 1 false positive and 1 false negative over 1 million passengers, or one where there are 10 false positives and 0 false negatives over the same span? If you pick the second, isn't that implying the false positive is categorically better?

Not at all; that just implies that in this particular data set the outcome is the same. To say that more false positives are always better is to say that an optimal solution is to classify everything is positive.

A single false positive is always better than a single false negative. A thousand or a million false positives... probably not. The false positive shouldn't carry the same weight, but it is still optimal to try to keep them low.

[Maximus]

Yes, and false positives and false negatives are those misapplications. To say that one is categorically better than the other is to imply that they are not misapplications.

I don't think there is any such implication at all.

Well it's demonstrable.

Clearly, this is a case where there was a false positive, and there was a misapplication.

Noting that the result of a false positive (inconvenience to someone, possibly serious inconvenience) is categorically better than a false negative (a plane crashes and everyone dies and terrorists get a "win" and all the costs that go with that) is rather obvious, I think, and hardly implies that the former is ok in any and all cases.

Sure, if you compare them one-to-one, one of them appears to be better. However that's not really useful. You also need to consider prior probabilities.

And we're still not taking cascading effects into account.

[alfred russel]

Back in the day, say the 80s, there was a lot more terrorism, a lot fewer flights, and a lot less security. We got by. What is going on now is overkill.

9/11 was bad because the hijackers took over planes and flew them into buildings. Problem solved by locking pilots away (and arguably new problems created, say for example with that flight that crashed via suicide pilot in France).

[dps]

Now, if you can state a standard for the removal of people, there is something to debate. 

There should be some sort of stated standard, which wouldn't have to be 100% objective, IMO.  But any reasonable standard would certainly not be met merely by speaking Arabic.

[Berkut]

Now, if you can state a standard for the removal of people, there is something to debate. 

There should be some sort of stated standard, which wouldn't have to be 100% objective, IMO.  But any reasonable standard would certainly not be met merely by speaking Arabic.

...which is rather obviously NOT the standard, since people speak arabic on airplanes all the time and are not removed.

[Admiral Yi]

Inshallah was the trigger.  Allahu Akbar would be a better one, but by that time it's probably too late to do anything.

[grumbler]

Now, if you can state a standard for the removal of people, there is something to debate. 

There should be some sort of stated standard, which wouldn't have to be 100% objective, IMO.  But any reasonable standard would certainly not be met merely by speaking Arabic.

Agreed.  If anyone saying the word inshallah is removed from airplanes, I imagine it is tough to buy a ticket to Inshallah International Airport in Oregon!

Ending with inshallah is supposedly obligatory among Muslims when making a promise, to acknowledge that God might have other plans.

[sbr]

Now, if you can state a standard for the removal of people, there is something to debate. 

There should be some sort of stated standard, which wouldn't have to be 100% objective, IMO.  But any reasonable standard would certainly not be met merely by speaking Arabic.

Inshallah International Airport in Oregon!

Never heard of that one, where is it?