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Widow Says Southwest Didn’t Let Her Call Suicidal Husband
A Southwest passenger wonders if she could have saved her husband’s life had a crewmember not intervened. (AP Photo /LM Otero)
A Wisconsin woman said Southwest Airlines refused to let her use her cell phone to make a call that could have saved her husband’s life before he committed suicide.
Last month, Karen Momsen-Evers was flying back to Milwaukee after a girls’ trip to New Orleans. Right before takeoff, she received a text from her husband, Andy, that read, “Karen, please forgive me for what I am about to do, I am going to kill myself…”
“I started shaking the minute I got the text and I was panicked, I didn’t know what to do,” Momsen-Evers told WTMJ Milwaukee. She also said she knew the text was “serious” as her husband had been very stressed recently.
In response to the incident, Southwest Airlines released the following statement to WTMJ:
“Our hearts go out to the Evers family during this difficult time. Our flight attendants are trained to notify the Captain if there is an emergency that poses a hazard to the aircraft or to the passengers on-board. In this situation, the pilots were not notified.”
The airline has since offered Momsen-Evers a refund for her ticket but has not provided an explanation of its handling of the situation.
The text reached her just as flight crew were finishing cabin checks, so Momsen-Evers texted back “no” and tried to call her husband. But a flight attendant intervened, asking her to turn her phone off.
“The steward slapped the phone down and said you need to go on airplane mode now,” Momsen-Evers said. The unidentified crew member explained that it was “FAA regulations.
Helpless, Momsen-Evers waited until airborne and reached out to another flight attendant.
“I begged her, I said I’m sure someone can make an emergency phone call,” says Momsen-Evers but the other crew member told her nothing could be done.“I just wanted someone to go and try to save him.”
Momsen-Evers says she spent the duration of the two-hour flight sobbing in her seat and was only able to call police after the plane arrived at the gate in Milwaukee. But when Momsen-Evers arrived home she was greeted by officers who told her that her husband had already taken his life.
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