Wed, Dec 07, 2011
Two Men Plead Guilty To Disruptive Behavior On Air Canada
Flight
A bad year for Research in Motion, maker of the Blackberry
mobile device, just got worse. Two company executives, 45-year-old
George Campbell and 38-year-old Paul Wilson, both residents of the
Toronto area, have pleaded guilty in a Canadian court to one count
each of mischief after what's described as drunken, disruptive
behavior forced an Air Canada flight from Toronto to Beijing to
turn back and make an unscheduled landing in Vancouver.
Peter Fitzpatrick, a spokesman for Air Canada, tells the New
York Times the plane was just “north of Alaska” when it
returned to Canada. But another source who spoke on condition of
anonymity tells the paper the plane was actually closer to Beijing,
but the airline was worried that Chinese law enforcement officials
would impound the plane if they continued to their destination.
As if the aborting of the flight after seven hours in the air
wasn't annoying enough to passengers, some reportedly were involved
in altercations with the two men before they could be handcuffed by
the cabin crew. Air Canada adds that because the crew was up
against duty time limits, the passengers had to be put up for the
night in Vancouver before they could continue on to Beijing.
Research in Motion has said only, “Based on the limited
information available at this time, RIM has suspended the
individuals involved pending further investigation.” Neither
man could be reached for comment. Following their guilty pleas,
they've been ordered to pay fines of almost $34,000 each.
RIM calls its Blackberry Playbook mobile device "the world's
first professional-grade tablet," but it has been a distant
also-ran to the Apple iPad, criticized by some reviewers for its
smaller screen size and poor software. Blackberry customers a few
weeks ago endured a days-long e-mail outage when the company's
worldwide server network crashed. The company's stock has fallen
from about $63 to about $17 in the past year, a drop of over 70
percent.
Maybe it's time to try "professional-grade executives."
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