Photo by velozia.com.

It has been a while since I’ve been able to bring you a story from the strange and unusual sides of aviation, travel, or the airline industry in general.  I think the last two posts worth mentioning are the man that went crazy in the Qantas flight for a chance to smoke and when US pilots were warned of flaming fireballs by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA).  Thankfully, passengers supply a regular stream of strangeness on board airliners, letting us get away a bit from airplane accidents and bad economic forecasts (and helping us realize that whatever strange habits we have, other people are always going to be weirder).

A man was apparently caught masturbating aboard Continental Airlines flight 190 from Houston to Miami this past Thursday.    The man, a merengue music star by the name of Elvis Crespo, apparently covered himself with a blanket about fifteen minutes after departing Houston and began masturbating.  The event was witnessed by the passenger sitting next to him, Texas resident Patricia Perea.  According to Perea, at one point the blanket came off and the US-born, Puerto Rican singer’s genitals were exposed.  A flight attendant asked the singer to stop (reports don’t state whether he stopped or not).

When the flight attendants reported the incident to the captain, he radioed ahead to Miami International Airport (MIA), where police officers from Miami-Dade County’s police department were waiting for Mr. Crespo.  When asked by the police if he had masturbated, the Grammy award winner told officers that he “could not recall doing that”. (Can masturbation cause amnesia?  I think scientists need to look into this.)  The singer was only temporarily detained for questioning and was not arrested.  Since the incident happened over US airspace, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is investigating as well.

I think the Orlando Sentinel got the title of the story right when they said that “Some things are not supposed to be done in an airplane, not even Suavemente.”  Suavemente is Spanish for softly and the title of Crespo’s greatest hit.  Of course, this could be a case of someone trying to frame the singer for something he didn’t do, but the fact that a flight attendant is involved and the incident warranted that the captain call MIA makes it very possible the singer was indeed masturbating on the plane.

If there is anything we can learn from this incident, apart from stressing the importance of not using those blankets airlines leave lying around (who knows what the previous passenger did with them), it is that maybe we need to lay off criticizing famous people from flying on their private planes.  At least when they do so, we don’t need to see them satisfy their deepest sexual urges.  Which brings up another question… does masturbating qualify someone for the mile-high club or is that a different club altogether.

Related Posts:

• Pilots told to watch out for flaming fireballs.
• Pilot goes crazy in Qantas plane.
• Strange stuff happens to airliners off Western Australia.
  

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