Unruly passengers cause 2 flights to change course in U.S.

These days, unruly passenger = looking at the flight attendandt the wrong way.

Making "interference with the performance and duties of a flight crew member or attendant" a federal crime gives way too much leeway to the crabby old hags known as flight attendants on domestic flights in the US.

All the incidents are quite interesting from reader's point of view !

Sending up fighters to escort these planes is a rather alarming trend.

What can they do, other than shoot down the plane and kill all the passengers and crew?

One of these, it's going to happen...

Exactly, I don't see the rationale, all the planes can do is escort, they can't intervene, and I don't see the logic in shooting down a jetliner over a metropolitan area. Actual hijackings should be nearly a thing of the past if crews and cockpits remain locked and doors reinforced according to regulations.

What can they do, other than shoot down the plane and kill all the passengers and crew?

It's the only way. But look on the bright side, at least 1 or 2 of the dead will probably be bad guys.

"Unruly passengers"

How rude.

"Johnson... held his carryon bag closely and was unhappy he couldn't stow it under his seat... he was in the bulkhead row"

Sheesh, the guy has a bulkhead row seat, which, except for the emergency exit row seats, are the only seats in economy class which have any decent legroom, and he complains about not being able to put his bag on the feet of the person behind him? What an idiot.

The flight crews are becoming the terrorists.

Two F-16s were launched at 11:44 a.m. to catch up with AirTran Airways Flight 39 from Atlanta to San Francisco after a report that an intoxicated passenger had locked himself in a bathroom, the Colorado-based North American Aerospace Defense Command said.

The terrorists have won. It's all over but the shouting.

Sucks for the people on these flights with them who may have had their plans messed up...

The people who disrupted those flights are total morons and they should be suitably punished and fined. This is not about terrorism, merely boorish behaviour by self important cretins and drunks. Is this anything to do with flight crews? In these cases, no.