Duhamel jet eject
He’s just plane dumb!
Hollywood semi-star Josh Duhamel got tossed off a flight out of La Guardia after he refused multiple requests to shut off his BlackBerry.
The “Transformers” actor’s flight to Lexington, Ky., Thursday night had already been delayed when a flight attendant first asked Duhamel to turn off the device.
Duhamel refused two requests — and laughed at the third.
He was “very rude” and “taunting the attendant,” a passenger told TMZ.com.
Air Wisconsin flight 3749 had to return to the gate, and airline personnel escorted Duhamel off the flight.
“He’s sorry,” said a Duhamel spokesman — who added that the 38-year-old actor was texting someone about his flight being delayed.
An Air Wisconsin spokeswoman would only say a “situation” caused the pilots to return to the gate just after departure, but declined to go into detail or confirm Duhamel’s involvement.
The FAA has told airlines they can allow passengers to use cellphones while planes are on the ground — or enforce a stricter rule, barring the use of cellphones on the ground when the cabin door is closed.
A passenger’s cellphone call was a suspected factor in the June 1995 crash of an airliner in New Zealand in which a radio altimeter went haywire. Four of the plane’s 18 passengers were killed.
No US airliner is known to have crashed because a passenger used a cellphone in flight — but there are still unknowns about what effect cellphones and other electronic gizmos have on modern cockpit equipment, the FAA says.
But the main reason cellphone use is banned in flight is because the Federal Communications Commission fears that cellphones transmitting from miles in the sky will interfere with ground-based radio networks, including aircraft navigation aids.
Only part of Thursday’s delay was caused by Duhamel’s antics.
The plane was already behind schedule because the Canadair jet used for the flight, operated by Air Wisconsin under the US Airways brand, had arrived late to La Guardia.
Duhamel should have taken a cue from his wife, Fergie, who was photographed at Los Angeles International Airport on Tuesday submitting cooperatively to one of the new TSA full-body scans.
The couple was in New York on Thursday so Fergie could receive the Woman of the Year award at the Billboard Women in Music event.
