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Tedd Petruna and AirTran Flight 297 from Atlanta to Houston

A viral message attributed to an AirTran Airways passenger named Tedd Petruna purports to be an eyewitness account of what is described as an Islamic terrorist “dry run” aboard AirTran Flight 297 from Atlanta to Houston on November 17, 2009. The airline says no such incident took place.

Description: Forwarded email / Viral text
Circulating since: Nov. 2009
Status: False (see details below)

Example:
Email text contributed by Tom S., Dec.

1, 2009:

FW: ENOUGH OF THIS ! THE REAL STORY WHY THE FLIGHT WAS CANCELLED ON 11-17, JIHADI DRY RUN ????

Fw: AIRLINE TRAVEL INEPTITUDE, INCOMPETENCE & ARROGANCE

I, Gene Hackemack, received this email from my good friend Tedd Petruna, a diver at the NBL facility [Neutral Buoyancy Lab], at NASA Houston, whom I used to work with. Tedd happened to be on this same Flt. 297, Atlanta to Houston.

In my opinion, the muslims are all getting very brave now, since they have one of their own in the white house...... read Tedd’s story below.

Analysis: The so-called “eyewitness” who wrote this viral email wasn’t even on the plane, according to AirTran officials quoted in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution on Dec. 5, 2009. Tedd J. Petruna was booked on Flight 297, airline records show, but his connecting flight from Akron arrived too late for him to actually board the Houston-bound plane.

AirTran had previously taken issue with many of the specifics of Petruna’s self-aggrandizing account, which the company describes as “an urban legend.” To be sure, the email contains no shortage of melodrama.

Would a real Muslim terrorist â€” as opposed to, say, one you might see depicted in a Hollywood action picture, or a comic book â€” actually yell “Shut up, infidel dog!” at a flight attendant?

More to the point, would they do so during what is supposed to be an undercover “terrorist dry run”?

You be the judge.

Update #1: More eyewitness testimony

Laura Armstrong of the Marietta Daily Journal provided two new pieces of information in her Dec. 6, 2009 column, “The Curious Case of Air Tran Flight 297.”

First, she spoke to Tedd Petruna, who, though he admits “taking artistic license with a couple of points,” claims he was, in fact, on the plane and has a boarding pass to prove it.

Second, Armstrong spoke to another passenger on Flight 297, security expert Brent C. Brown, who backs up some, but not all, of Petruna’s account, including the allegation that the “suspicious men” were belligerent and refused to sit down, creating tension and “chaos” aboard the plane. According to Armstrong, Brown described the passengers who chose to get off the plane when it returned to the gate as “traumatized.” (See video of Brown answering questions about the incident via WSB-TV in Atlanta.)

Brown’s observations conflict with certain aspects of the airline’s version of events, while confirming several of the claims of another (partial) eyewitness, Dr. Keith Robinson, a chaplain from Texas. Robinson wasn’t yet aboard the flight when the fracas occurred, but experienced its aftermath when he boarded after the plane returned to the gate. He noted a considerable degree of agitation and stress among the deboarding crew and passengers, as well as those who stayed on the flight, which he took as an indication that something more serious had happened than the airline admits.

http://urbanlegends.about.com/od/religion/a/flight_297_atlanta_to_houston.htm