Ian Turner Update

He changed hotel due to the air conditioning system that was keeping him awake and he wanted a good night sleep after the conference and pub con before his flight home. He booked into the Monaco Hotel a few blocks away from the Park Plaza on the Saturday. Unfortunately this hotel wasn’t much better so he didn’t get his good night sleep as planned. He arrived at the airport drained from the conference week and the lack of sleep.

To make matters worse the flight was delayed to Atlanta meaning that he would miss the connection to the UK, plus the weather was bad. The flight to Atlanta was apparently very turbulent and Ian is a bad flyer and afraid of heights at the best of times.

This culmination of circumstances made Ian have, what can only be described as, a panic attack on the plane as it landed in Atlanta. The actual details here are quite vague and Ian is unsure of the whole events.

What did happen though was that he left his personal belongings on the plane (passport, wallet, laptop, coat) so subsequently he was arrested by the local police inside/outside the airport. Subsequent to this and the fact he had no ID on him he was detained in the local jail.

It has taken the past few days for the local police to sort this out with Homeland Security and the British Consolate and having no ID on him was a big problem. But as soon as he was traced to the jail and his identity was proved, we were able to get funds to him (thanks to Keith) which enabled the passport to be sorted for Ian.

He is currently at the airport hotel awaiting a flight home and has got some of his personal belongings back.

David Naylor blog