Posted on 11/01/2007 7:15:59 PM PDT by Libloather
Arabic-speaking passengers sue American
The Associated Press
DETROIT --Six men of Iraqi descent who were flying home after a stint training Marines sued American Airlines on Thursday, saying employees publicly humiliated them after a passenger expressed concerns about them to security guards.
The men, who sued in U.S. District Court in Detroit alleging racial discrimination, say airline employees grounded their Aug. 28 flight from San Diego to Chicago and detained them, believing they were security risks.
The men, some of whom are U.S. citizens, were returning to the Detroit area after training Marines at Camp Pendleton in California when another passenger expressed concerns to guards partly because she heard the men speaking Arabic.
After taxiing from the gate, pilots returned the plane to the terminal. The six men were segregated and detained while the airline helped more than 100 passengers find hotel rooms, according to a prepared statement from the men.
The suit was filed on behalf of David Al-Watan, Talal Cholagh, Ali Alzerej, Hassan Alzerej, Hussein Alsalih and Mohammad Al-Saedy.
"They treated me like a terrorist," Al-Watan, 30, said in the statement. "We didn't do anything wrong, but they made everybody scared of us."
Flight 590's crew returned the plane to the gate to resolve potential security problems, airline spokesman Tim Wagner said in a statement.
"All passengers disembarked the aircraft after it was determined that it would not be able to redepart because of San Diego International Airport's 11:30 p.m. flight curfew," Wagner said. "Several passengers were briefly interviewed by law enforcement officers. No passenger was arrested."
The six men took flights with the airline the next morning, Wagner said.
The men worked for Defense Training Systems, a unit of International Logistics Services Corp. of Anchorage, Alaska.
We need to find a way to sue terrorists. We really do...
I’m told they have video on the planes. Maybe we could see what was happening and decide for ourselves?
I really don’t think their lawsuit will carry much weight given the climate today with terrorists.
I can’t find anything in the constitution that guarantees the right not to be offended.
Even muslims em[ployed by our own government walk around with a chip on their shoulders.
They should sue Saudi Arabia for financing the terrorism that leads to suspicion of muslims.
I'm surprised Defense Training Systems doesn't have their own private equipment to transport their workers.
If I looked different, then I would just have to be very patient with people.
It would suck being misunderstood, but I wouldn't sue people over it.
Terrorist: "They pissed me off."
Lawyer: "You may have a case..."
The people to blame for this are your a$$hole bretheren who have been hijacking airplanes and blowing people up for the last fifty years. Take it up with them.
How about they can file suit if they agree that the next time somebody doesn’t report their suspicions because they are afraid of getting sued, and that failure leads to a terrorist act, the families of the victims get to sue them.
I am guessing that the 9/11 terrorists spoke English the entire time prior to hijacking the planes.
Earth to you. That only covers Government vs people and sometimes employees and landlords.
A private business can refuse to serve you for any reason, or for no reason, as it sees fit.
I have outright refused to train a few people that I am uncomfortable with. - Or that I just don’t like the look of, for that matter. And I made no bones about it, either.
I am a flight instructor. - And this lawsuit involves my tagline.
What are these guys training our Marines on?
The airline employees erred on the side of safety and at a time of war.
If these guys have been vetted and approved to provide training to our Marines at Camp Pendleton, I’m inclined to back them. And if the plane was really turned around and passengers taken off and forced to stay overnight and fly out the next day, all because some dimwit went into a tizzy when she heard men speaking Arabic, the other 100+ passengers ought to be suing too.
This doesn’t sound anything like the case of the infamous “flying imams”, whose behavior was bizarre enough to disturb a large number of passengers as well as some of the crew members who interacted with them. This sounds more like a case of stupid overreaction (probably in accordance with some stupid policies set by the government and/or airlines), that ends up handing the terrorists a lot more power than they really have, to disrupt our lives and economy.
I thought congress passed something that prevented this type of sueing after the flying iman problem. We want passengers to be suspicious. Too bad if they feel like terrorists.
Unfortunately you are completely wrong. It's a nice thought, and you would expect as much in a free country, but you are wrong.
Think about it this way. Can a restaurant refuse to serve blacks?
That’s how it should be, per the Constitution, but it’s not current law for any public accommodation or conveyance. And in many states, even your private flight instruction activities would be subject to broad anti-discrimination laws.
There’s more to the story:
One flight attendant told investigators the behavior of the group made him nervous and was “making his hair stand on end.”
He said that one of the men went into the bathroom and when he came out he stood next to a woman and stared at her for three to four minutes. That passenger got off the plane.
The flight attendant also said that another man in the group began to stare at him in an “abnormal, unusual and intense” way. When he mentioned that to the other attendants, they each said they felt they were being stared at in the same fashion.
“It was like each of these (Arabic) passengers had their assigned attendant,” Kotsonis said.
Another flight attendant told investigators he had “a gut feeling and discomfort” and “needed to do something” after one of the men put a blanket on his head during the safety demonstration only to take it off and stare angrily at everyone around him.
After the passenger got off the plane, the crew talked among themselves and decided to notify the pilot about their concerns.
The pilot said in the report that this was the first time in 20 years of flying that a crew had indicated such feelings to him.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1918613/posts
Probably Arabic language, which is something our military and intelligence forces have great need of these days.
No, you are completely wrong.
I own more than one business and I refuse to do whatever the hell I want.
The quick answer to your question is yes, they can refuse.
Bull. My flight instruction is governed by FAA strictures. Name the state that can so restrict me.
Some of these guys seem totally unable to get over their arrogance. Life in America is going to be tough on them every time they leave their neighborhood.
Actually, other accounts said that it was the flight crew that was uncomfortable with these 6 Iraqis, although it was one female passenger who actually complained and gave them the ability to halt the flight.
The Iraqis arranged themselves throughout the plane so that they were not seated together but so that each could focus on a particular flight attendant, and at some point some of them stood near the flight attendants and stared fixedly at them. There was some suggestion that this was a drill or an attempt to see how the flight attendants would respond, but apparently it was something these guys cooked up on their own.
I don’t care where they were training or what they were doing (personally, I hope the Marines didn’t trust them any further than they could throw them). It sounds like they intended to provoke - and they did. The lawsuit is simply the second phase of their plan.
I would have no idea if I was being treated like a terrorist. I got searched on a visit to see the VP speak. Do I have a lawsuit here? I thought the SS was just being cautious, but maybe I should sue. Come to think of it, they searched us all. THE HORROR!
Take out an ad offering to teach whites only, and a bunch of lawyers will help explain it to you.
That would be unnecessary and expensive, with the cost passed along to taxpayers. We put our military service people on public conveyances for most of their travel within the US and a lot of their travel outside.
Sure doesn't help endure those folks to our hearts, that's for sure.
Per the article, the parent company is International Logistics Services Corp. They are in the air cargo transport business.
Muslims are not be trusted, they’ve been hired over in Iraq too supposedly helping our side only to end up helping kill more of our soldiers, we don’t seem to have a good way of figuring out a good Muslim from a bad one, it sounds like these 6 may have dual purposes, obviously their allegiance is not to America.
Hmmm, interesting that AP left out the rather critical information about the crew being seriously concerned about these passengers. Does cast a VERY different light on things. I do hope there were video cameras on the plane to help sort out the truth.
What doesn’t make a lot of sense is that these guys have certainly undergone some serious background checks in order to be allowed to roam around Camp Pendleton and provide training to Marines. So they’re either 1) really not Islamic extremism sympathizers, or 2) really heavy duty undercover enemy operatives, who managed to get through the background checks because careful preparations had been made to ensure they could.
Which brings us to trying to get things to add up. If they’re not covert terrorists, why were they behaving in a way that even crew members found worrisome? But if they are, and had successfully infiltrated our military, why would they blow this very valuable cover with some attention grabbing antics on a commercial passenger plane? Neither scenario makes any sense at all.
I think there must be yet more to the story than even the article you linked to suggests.
****”They treated me like a terrorist,”****
Gee, if that is against the law, then EVERY time I have to take off my shoes at the airport, I should have a law suit.
But see my post #31. I can’t come up with a scenario in which all the available information we have about them and about the incident adds to making any sense.
How many of these Arabic speakers suing are Coptic Christians or Sephardic Jews? I’ll bet none.
“This doesn’t sound anything like the case of the infamous “flying imams”, whose behavior was bizarre enough to disturb a large number of passengers as well as some of the crew members who interacted with them. This sounds more like a case of stupid overreaction (probably in accordance with some stupid policies set by the government and/or airlines), that ends up handing the terrorists a lot more power than they really have, to disrupt our lives and economy.”
I read an article on this yesterday or the day before and it wasn’t just the passengers who were spooked, but several members of the crew were too. And according to the article, the lady who complained said that one of these guys stood next to here in the aisle and stared her down for no reason.
I’ll see if I can find the article again and post it here
It is a very weird story. I think they were doing things that genuinely caused alarm, and not just to some timid and naive woman who was scared of people “speaking Arabic.” The question, of course, is why they would do this.
There have been Muslims who have infiltrated the military, such as the guy who killed a number of soldiers with grenades as they slept in their tents in the early days of the Iraq war, and there have certainly been attempts by Iraqis to attack Americans by infiltrating bases, etc., although they have not been successful. But it is odd that background checks would not have weeded out people who were here to “train” our military.
However, the fact that they are suing does indicate to me that this was not innocent. Perhaps they were just pushing the envelope, maybe just for amusement, to express their contempt and see if they could scare the dumb Americans, and things got a little out of hand. But if they hadn’t been trying to set up something, I think they would have toned down their behavior, apologized (and spoken English, which they obviously knew) and accepted everybody else’s apologies in return. But they didn’t.
“I do hope there were video cameras on the plane to help sort out the truth.”
And open up another lawsuit when some schmuck sues the airline because his civil liberties were infringed upon because he was videotaped?
But it is a good idea though, and have the video record on something similar to the black box.
And bravo to the airline employees for that!
All airport authorities and pilots should be provided with small portable DVD players that show footage from 9-11, including the hijackers going through security and bodies jumping out of the WTC buildings. Then we could say “See? This is why we’re a bit concerned. Understand, you nimrod? Go ahead a sue us and we’ll see to it you’re deported”.
"Interesting" is not the word; AP, and the MSM in general, has been committing treason against Western civilisation for years.
Certainly we have to remain vigilant, but that doesn't mean we have to become vigilantes.
Yah...blame the right source. I love it (/sarc) how everyone seems to blame the wrong people for airline security (/thank you 19 terrorists and Bin L), taking off their shoes (/thank you Richard Reid), etc. etc. etc.
Your photoshop image has no bearing on the merits of the plaintiff’s civil case, but if it makes you feel superior to so use a fraudulent image then it’s not a total waste of your time, eh?
Wow, I would have NEVER guessed that was photoshopped. I am so naive.
Hearing Arabic makes my ears perk up after 9-11.
Iraqi-Americans removed from flight for speaking Arabic [VIDEO]
An American airlines flight to Chicago was delayed because a passenger was scared of several Arabic-speaking men on board.”Those men she heard talking? They were Iraqi-Americans, in town to train US Marines at Camp Pendleton.” All passengers were removed and the flight was canceled.
http://digg.com/politics/Iraqi_Americans_removed_from_flight_for_speaking_Arabic_VIDEO/all
SOME were US CITIZENS yet they were Training with our Marines??? ANd then they SUE? What kind of MANLY MAN SUES over this kind of stuff!!! Get a life, and speak ENGLISH.
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