What are in-flight emergencies.
A Wisconsin woman is looking for answers after she said Southwest Airlines refused to let her use her cellphone to make a call that could have saved her husband's life. (Fox)
On April 3, Karen Momsen-Evers was flying back to Milwaukee after a girls’ trip in New Orleans. Right before takeoff, she received a text from her husband that read: “Karen, please forgive me for what I am about to do, I am going to kill myself…”
"I started shaking and I was panicked," Momsen-Evers told FoxNews.com. "I texted him ‘no, 'no,’ and he responded, 'yes, because I have to.'"
The text reached her just as flight crew were finishing cabin checks, but she said she knew the text was "serious" because her husband, who'd been very stressed recently, never threatened suicide before. She said that she told a male flight attendant what was happening and showed him the text messages.
"The steward slapped the phone down and said 'you have to put that in airplane mode. We were pushing away from the gate,'" Momsen-Evers recalls. The unidentified crew member explained that it was “FAA regulations.”
Helpless, Momsen-Evers waited until airborne to reach out to another flight attendant for help and asked if they could make an emergency call from the cockpit.
"I showed her the texts. She said that she there is nothing she could do and that they could not disturb the pilot. They offered me a drink, that was it," says Momsen-Evers. "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 met by officers who told her that her husband Andy had already taken his life.
Local TV coverage:
A call for help: Local woman looking for answers after her husband took his own life