View Full Version : Delta and KLM sued over 'too fat to fly' Vilma Soltesz
The husband of a US woman who was too big to be flown home from Europe - where she later died - is to sue the airlines involved for damages.
Vilma Soltesz, who weighed about 30st (193kg), was refused a place on two flights in October.
She died of kidney failure before a suitable flight could be found, after refusing treatment from local doctors.
Delta Airlines said every effort was made to accommodate her but it had been "physically unable" to get her aboard.
But Peter Ronai, the lawyer acting for her husband, Janos, told CBS: "They [the airlines] took on the responsibility to get her to Hungary, it's their responsibility to get her back."
Mrs Soltesz needed to return to New York from her holiday home in Hungary to resume medical treatment.
She suffered from kidney disease and diabetes and reportedly "did not trust" Hungarian doctors.
But the Dutch airline KLM was unable to get her on board a flight on which she had booked two seats to accommodate her.
She was then told to drive to Prague in the Czech Republic where she would be given seats on a larger Delta Airlines flight.
Do they cut down on weight and fuel costs,:hmmm:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-20510267
Note: 27 November 2012 Last updated at 12:14 GMT
em2nought
11-27-12, 01:04 PM
I find little sympathy for this in my cold little heart. If we go making it too easy to be fat the results are going to be just like what happened when we made it too easy to "not" work. :D
AVGWarhawk
11-27-12, 01:36 PM
She was afraid of Hungarian doctors?
nikimcbee
11-27-12, 01:46 PM
There's an easy fix to this:
http://www.aviation.ru/Il/76/Il-76.3.jpg
Seats 10 portly people.
GoldenRivet
11-27-12, 01:58 PM
Its not about saving weight or fuel costs... a 430 lbs person is not going to make any measurable impact on the performance of a jet airliner...
The airlines in question were not negligent, and their actions nor lack of actions did not cause or contribute to the death.
The passenger in question was apparently a flight risk, if she had known health problems that required treatment enough to warrant her being flown abroad and the situation was only made worse by her enormous girth she was already an in flight emergency waiting to happen.
This sort of decision was right to have occurred at the captain level "Do not put that person on this airplane." thats exactly what i would have said. and that would have been the end of it.
Federal regulatons require each occupant to have their seatbelts securely fastened during takeoff and landing, and at any other time the pilot in command deems it necessary. If - even with a seatbelt extender (if available) they were clearly unable to securely fasten the seatbelt and in such a case she needs to be off the plane. What were they to do, completely go against internationally accepted regulations, endanger her life and endanger the lives of those around her just so she could get airborne? and what happens if they did let her on unsecured by seatbelt? in the event of a crash have they created a 430 lb projectile?
an additional possibility is she would have likely had some sort of life threatening emergency aboard the aircraft due to the medical reasons warranting her flight in the first place, the flight would have diverted to a destination that in this situation could have taken hours to reach and she would have likely died in route, then you're faced with the prospect of unloading 430 lbs of dead (literally and figuratively) weight from an airplane of onlookers who's lives she just endangered. Then what would be the next headline. "Obese passenger dies in flight, officials unable to remove body due to size." and the husband ( and perhaps others ) would be litigating over that incident!
They were not only right in denying her boarding on this fact alone, but it would appear that if they made the effort and were just physically unable to get her into the airplane, reasonable efforts were apparently made to accommodate her request to fly and the shear mechanics of strapping her ass in proved impossible.
she should have been grounded based on the risk alone of boarding her.
CaptainHaplo
11-27-12, 02:20 PM
She refused treatment.
No one but herself to blame for the outcome of such a decision.
Case dismissed.
Herr-Berbunch
11-27-12, 02:30 PM
Stupid woman, treatment in Hungary would've been a darn sight more cheaper than back home.
Hope it gets thrown out of court within two minutes.
IL-76 wouldn't cut it, Super Guppy to the rescue!
As much as I'm on the side of the airlines, how did she get to Hungary?
As much as I'm on the side of the airlines, how did she get to Hungary?
I heard on a radio report of this incident the woman actually weighed substantially less when she flew to Hungary than when she attempted to fly back to the US...
<O>
Herr-Berbunch
11-27-12, 02:47 PM
Even less sympathy then.
nikimcbee
11-27-12, 02:49 PM
@ GR
Good point, The captain has the final say. What's the point of having a captain if the zampolits in HR are going to override you.:dead:
I was on a flight this year, where there was a woman that took up 1.5 seats and her baby:o was in the other seat. Good thing that flight wasn't 100% full, somebody would have had to sit next to her!:o:dead:
The last flight I was on, there was another chuncky woman, who barely fit into her seat. That flight was completely full, so the guy that boarded last:o got to sit by her. He wasn't to happy, but what can you do. Fortunately, she was friendly and the guy liked to talk:shifty:, so they chatted for 4 hours.:shifty: (was no big deal until my laptop batteries ran out.:shifty::dead:
http://i1358.photobucket.com/albums/q764/gasturbin/271n027TooFatToFly--300x300.jpg
Jimbuna
11-28-12, 02:12 PM
Even less sympathy then.
Exactly :yep:
Herr-Berbunch
11-28-12, 02:16 PM
I'm sure you'll also add a few pounds when you get on your cruise. :03:
Jimbuna
11-28-12, 02:23 PM
I'm sure you'll also add a few pounds when you get on your cruise. :03:
I can predict the outcome....he has the dates but doesn't rejoing his ship in Miami until Dec 10th and by then swmbo will be panicking in case she misses her land choice, Oludeniz and silly bugga me will be called upon to make a definitive decision.
One month later after the boy fixes us up "I told you we should have waited" :/\\!!
Stealhead
11-28-12, 02:56 PM
I agree with GoldenRivet she would have been a huge liability.Perhaps they feared that the in flight meal would not appease her and she would have attempted to eat small children
aboard the plane.
She should have arranged some sort of air medical flight firm to fly her.I dont know if there are any that fly such great distances though short of the US military and some others.
Of course she refused treatment and it seems she was a fat gluttonous pig so
who really cares?
She refused treatment.
No one but herself to blame for the outcome of such a decision.
Case dismissed.
Yeah, that's the part that gets me. She didn't die because they couldn't get her to treatment quickly enough. She died because she refused treatment. Pretty sure that even a hospital in Somalia would've been equipped with a dialysis machine to save her if needed, let alone Hungary or the Czech Republic where healthcare is, all in all, pretty good. Likewise, commercial airlines are not medevac. They simply aren't equipped to pull out seriously ill people during health crises, and it's absurd to me to expect them to make that promise.
It sounds like this is not a poor family either, and if they were US residents then they probably had enough health insurance to be able to arrange for a proper medical flight. It's not like there aren't ways to fly a sick 400lb woman across an ocean safely and under proper supervision. It's just that someone wanted to cheap out and fly Delta instead. Shame on them.
Jimbuna
11-28-12, 03:58 PM
Yeah, that's the part that gets me. She didn't die because they couldn't get her to treatment quickly enough. She died because she refused treatment. Pretty sure that even a hospital in Somalia would've been equipped with a dialysis machine to save her if needed, let alone Hungary or the Czech Republic where healthcare is, all in all, pretty good. Likewise, commercial airlines are not medevac. They simply aren't equipped to pull out seriously ill people during health crises, and it's absurd to me to expect them to make that promise.
It sounds like this is not a poor family either, and if they were US residents then they probably had enough health insurance to be able to arrange for a proper medical flight. It's not like there aren't ways to fly a sick 400lb woman across an ocean safely and under proper supervision. It's just that someone wanted to cheap out and fly Delta instead. Shame on them.
Just about sums it up for me....ta :yep:
Stealhead
11-28-12, 04:16 PM
Why a person that had some many medical issues would have a summer home or whatever in a nation where they did not "trust the doctors" is beyond me.I think I'd rather see an Hungarian doctor to be honest.
My wife is a dermatologist and in this area the best GP is a Russian woman that got trained in Soviet times other doctors always know who the bets and worst doctors are in their area.
Hell I'm not picky push comes to shove a veterinarian could keep you breathing and any medical facility is better than none at all at least to get you stabilized.
Cybermat47
11-28-12, 04:34 PM
Shame they haven't got any Me 323s.
Jimbuna
11-28-12, 04:59 PM
Shame they haven't got any Me 323s.
Shocking :o
Herr-Berbunch
11-28-12, 06:38 PM
The worst thing is that her greedy family might win! What would that tell the world? :nope:
CaptainHaplo
11-28-12, 07:10 PM
Question #1 - how are they going to transport the body home for burial?
OK - that was bad.
Seriously though - she could have taken a cruise back - such vessels have sufficent medical facilities to deal with such issues as she had, and unless she gained even more weight, she would not have upset the stability of the ship.
Or would she?
Stealhead
11-28-12, 11:14 PM
All joking aside it is not the weight of an obese person that is the issue but rather the girth.If they cant safety wear a seat belt they endanger themselves and others.
400 pounds is not much weight to a large airliner we are not talking about a Piper Cub where such weight would be a serious factor that is just two large men entire football teams fly all the time and the combined weight must be pretty high but they can all safely sit in the seats and wear the belts when needed and they are not on the verge of death.A large aircraft has several thousand pounds just in fuel not to mention any cargo.
An Airbus A340-300 can carry up to 39,060 gallons of fuel maximum take of weight is 610,000 lbs and the plane weighs 287,000 lbs empty.Fully loaded with fuel(~6.8 pounds per gallon) that leaves 57,392 lbs for passengers and cargo even if there where 20,000 lbs in cargo that still leaves 37392 lbs in passenger weight.The issue is being able to safely be abroad the plane not weight.
Of course this dose not take into account weight distribution but that is more vital on pure cargo aircraft that carry very large and heavy objects (tanks, helicopters) or an aircraft set up for cargo.
Jimbuna
11-29-12, 05:31 AM
All joking aside it is not the weight of an obese person that is the issue but rather the girth.If they cant safety wear a seat belt they endanger themselves and others.
400 pounds is not much weight to a large airliner we are not talking about a Piper Cub where such weight would be a serious factor that is just two large men entire football teams fly all the time and the combined weight must be pretty high but they can all safely sit in the seats and wear the belts when needed and they are not on the verge of death.A large aircraft has several thousand pounds just in fuel not to mention any cargo.
An Airbus A340-300 can carry up to 39,060 gallons of fuel maximum take of weight is 610,000 lbs and the plane weighs 287,000 lbs empty.Fully loaded with fuel(~6.8 pounds per gallon) that leaves 57,392 lbs for passengers and cargo even if there where 20,000 lbs in cargo that still leaves 37392 lbs in passenger weight.The issue is being able to safely be abroad the plane not weight.
Of course this dose not take into account weight distribution but that is more vital on pure cargo aircraft that carry very large and heavy objects (tanks, helicopters) or an aircraft set up for cargo.
I know little of the figures you typed but believe they will be correct and agree safety must have been the primary factor.
kraznyi_oktjabr
11-29-12, 07:34 AM
How wide this lady would have been and what is width of passenger airliners doors? :hmmm:
How wide this lady would have been and what is width of passenger airliners doors? :hmmm:
According to the original radio report I heard, an attempt was made to board her on one airliner, but she was unable to fit the aisle space between the seats...
<O>
Jimbuna
11-29-12, 01:22 PM
According to the original radio report I heard, an attempt was made to board her on one airliner, but she was unable to fit the aisle space between the seats...
<O>
What about the cargo hold?
j/k
Stealhead
11-29-12, 03:05 PM
Maybe the space shuttle.:03:
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