What Happened Over Our Christmas Vacation--a story in several parts, not in order...

I'm going to write these entries out of order. I'm just in one of those moods. I'll start off with Sara's story because I think it is more interesting than tales of meltdowns in Finnish grocery stores and complaints about the French ability to queue aren't what I'm in the mood to write about today. And what can you say about Switzerland? Boy, is it clean. Best restroom in the world is at the Gruyere Cheese factory, hands down. No one would ever get Hep A if we took a lesson from the Swiss sanitary habits. That being said, there are points of interest beyond self-cleaning toilets, all night cook-a-thons in Helsinki, being trampled before the Mona Lisa and watching "Australia" at a movie theater on the Champs Elysees. On Sunday, January 4, after a lovely holiday in Switzerland and Paris, we prepared to send Sara back to the US. She's done this flight what, five, six times now? She's flown back and forth between Western Europe, Russia and the US enough times that she can sleepwalk through JFK--this is saying something. The worst part of the journey, typically, is Sheremetyvo Airport. On some surveys, Sheremetyvo nips at the heels of Charles DeGaulle as the worst airport in the world. Let's just say that Heathrow is a welcome change from SVO. The trip started off poorly whenI discovered that the Moscow-Atlanta flight was delayed by 90 minutes. I gave Sara some rubles for a snack, she went through at least three security checks just to get to the gate and then we waved good-bye.I had plenty to do that afternoon. We were joining the Moscow, Russia and Moscow, Russia-West districts on a week long temple trip to Helsinki, Finland. An overnight train to St. Petersburg followed by a day long bus trek was ahead of us. We ate normal food (you never eat normal food on a Russian train), packed our bags and went to our cattle car third class bunk on the Petersburg train. And then we checked the Delta website to see what the status was of Sara's flight. The webpage said: DIVERTED. You expect delayed, in flight, landing, boarding but not DIVERTED. There are only a handful of reasons to divert a plane: mechanical problems, medical emergency, terrorism and inflight disruption. None of those are happy. Especially for a parent crammed into a cramped coffin of a bunk on a Russian train heading off into the bleak, freezing cold expanse of northern Russia. We tried using a calling card to contact anyone we could find in the US. No luck. I tried my brother Peter's cellphone in Geneva--he has Vonage VOIP and could call Delta for us. No answer. We finally sent an email to Parry's brother who had been charged to pick her up in SLC and take her back to university. The long and the short of the email was "FIND HER." And then we waited. All through the long night in the cramped bunk, my ipod noise-reducing headphones crammed in my ears, my Kindle hugged close to my chest so it didn't accidentally fall down the 5 feet from my bunk to the floor. In the morning we discovered that she had been diverted to Newfoundland, the first airport you can touchdown at once you're across the Atlantic. Not a great sign. She was delayed so long she missed her connection in Atlanta. What a wonderful development when your child has an 8AM econ class. The story of what happened on the flight is copypasted into this entry. The bottom line is this: Parry's brother Peter worked a miracle and got Sara back to SLC on Monday morning. The other people on that flight had to wait until Tuesday evening. Her luggage was lost, she hadn't had much sleep but she made it in one piece. We are eternally grateful for Peter helping her out. As a parent, it ranks up there as one of the scarier moments I've had, crossing your fingers that your child isn't on the flight where the suicide bomber has figured out how to mix the Delta lavatory handsoap with the lip balm in his bag to make an explosive device. In some respects the situation is pretty funny and fairly typical if you know what it is like traveling with Russian. That being said, I don't think Sara is that keen on traveling back to Russia any time soon. Perhaps a double major in European Studies isn't what she wants after all :)

Unruly Passenger Forces Emergency Landing Of Delta Flight

Sunday, January 4, 2009 – updated: 9:00 pm EST January 4, 2009 ATLANTA -- A Delta Air Lines flight bound for Atlanta was forced to make an emergency landing Sunday due to an unruly passenger.A Delta representative, who called the incident a security threat, told Channel 2 it happened aboard flight 47. Officials said the plane took off from Moscow and made an emergency landing in the Canadian town of Gander, Newfoundland.Delta said there are about 200 passengers on the Boeing 767.They confirmed the plane was met with Royal Canadian mounted patrol in Gander.Delta didn’t release details Sunday, but said the incident was grave enough to re-route the flight to another country where the problem passenger could be dealt with Sunday.“They are going to get everyone back to Atlanta safely,” said Delta spokesman Susan Elliott. “This is a rare occurrence.”The flight was scheduled to land at Atlanta's Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport Sunday night.Copyright 2009 by WSBTV.com. All rights reserved.

Atlanta-bound Delta jet diverted to Canada

Unruly Russian passenger in jail in Newfoundland after being restrained by 8 people

By CHRISTIAN BOONE

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Sunday, January 04, 2009

An unruly passenger so disrupted an international Delta Air Lines flight that the Atlanta-bound plane was diverted to a Canadian airport where authorities took the subject into custody. Flight 47 from Moscow to Atlanta made an unscheduled stop Sunday at Gander International Airport in Newfoundland, and the passenger was removed by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, said Delta spokeswoman Susan Elliott. Canadian authorities identified the passenger as Sergey Kotsur, 39, of Russia. Elliott said the decision to eject the passenger was made by the plane’s captain. She would not release details about Kotsur’s actions. According to a RCMP news release, the plane “was diverted as the result of an intoxicated, unruly male passenger.” The plane was carrying 206 passengers when it departed Moscow earlier Sunday. It landed at Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport about 10 p.m., more than four hours behind schedule. Flight 47 passenger Eric Feliciano, waiting for his luggage late Sunday night after clearing customs, said the Russian passenger was sitting ahead of him in coach. He noticed an empty 1.5-liter bottle of Chivas Regal next to the man’s seat. Kotsur allegedly started fighting with his wife and banging on the side of the aircraft. “He was drunk,” said Feliciano, 40, a Tallahassee, Fla. resident who was returning home from vacation.. “I was afraid he was going to try to jump out of the plane or something.” Another passenger, Irakli Bolkvadze, 30, of Moscow, said he watched as crew members assisted by others confronted Kotsur. “The steward said some guy was sick,” and that he had mixed alcohol with “pills,” said Bolkvadze, who was flying to the United States for a vacation. It took eight people — male and female flight attendants and passengers including Feliciano — to hold Kotsur. They tried putting him in plastic wrist binders, but “he broke the restraints a couple of times,” the Florida man said. After police took Kotsur off the plane and put him in a police car, he tried to kick out a window of the vehicle, Feliciano said. He said he came to the crew’s aid because “you do what you need to do when you see a disturbance like that.” Kotsur remains in jail on assault and mischief charges. He is scheduled to appear in Gander Provincial Court on Wednedsday. — Staff writer Ben Smith contributed to this article.