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A social media influencer from Australia has been banned from flying on Jetstar and Qantas after inflating his life jacket during the safety demonstration before a domestic flight from 
Sydney Kingsford Smith Airport (SYD) to Adelaide Airport (ADL). Hugh Lovett was filmed doing so, and claimed that he was just having fun and was not a good listener. However, safety in modern aviation is no laughing matter.
While he and his party were allowed to remain on the flight, Lovett was met by police upon his arrival in Adelaide, and later banned from flying on the two airlines. He claims that the restriction is temporary while the incident remains under review, but Jetstar and Qantas themselves have not specified the length of the ban. In any case, it will hopefully have made him rethink his five minutes of online fame.
A Dramatic Start To A Domestic Flight
Coverage of the matter by Live & Let’s Fly notes that the incident took place on Friday, October 16, ahead of Jetstar flight JQ768 from Sydney to Adelaide. According to Flightradar24, this is a daily scheduled service operated by Airbus A320s that tends to take around an hour and 40 minutes. Last Friday, it got off to a dramatic start when Lovett inflated his life jacket during the preflight safety demo.
Footage of the incident posted by the Lovett family themselves shows Hugh doing so while the demo tells guests to “only inflate your life jacket as you leave the aircraft,” with the video’s caption reading “apparently your [sic] not supposed to copy them.” According to 7 News, a Jetstar spokesperson said that “we have zero tolerance for behaviour that puts the safety of our customers and crew at risk,” adding:
“Customers are required by law to follow crew safety instructions at all times and must not remove or tamper with safety equipment, unless instructed to do so.”
Worth It For Brief Online Fame?
Reporting on the matter by Gate Checked included testimony from Lovett himself, who later explained that “honestly, I was just having a bit of fun: they did make it very clear not to put it on or pull it until you’ve left the aircraft.” He added that “I just don’t listen very well,” although the sincerity of this remark is somewhat questionable. In any case, he was soon approached by the cabin crew on board the flight.
They allowed him to remain on the aircraft, but only on the condition that he moved to another seat, given that his could no longer legally be occupied due to it not having a working life jacket. Thankfully for Lovett, the flight was empty enough that such a switch was possible, but things could obviously have panned out very differently had the flight been fully booked. Still, he was not out of the woods just yet.
Upon the flight’s arrival in Adelaide on Friday, Lovett was escorted from the aircraft by local police officers, with his misery then being compounded when he was slapped with a flying ban from both Jetstar and its parent airline, Australian flag carrier Qantas. The police are said to have questioned Lovett, and they said that “enquiries remain ongoing and further comment will be provided at an appropriate time.”
Life Jackets Must Never Be Inflated Inside The Aircraft
While inflating a life jacket during the safety demonstration is obviously a one-way ticket to a ban, it is also emphasized during these procedures that, even if life jackets are required amid a water landing, passengers should only inflate them once they are outside. Doing so while still on board the aircraft risks impeding their exit, particularly in today’s era of increasingly tight gaps between aircraft seats.
Arguably the most famous and tragic instance of passengers not following these instructions occurred back in November of 1996, when Ethiopian Airlines flight 961 was hijacked while flying from Addis Ababa to Lagos via Nairobi and Brazzaville. When the jet ditched in the Indian Ocean due to fuel exhaustion, many of the 125 people who died were trapped in the sinking plane due to inflating their life vests.
