British Airways Flight Detained at Dulles Airport, Passengers Being Quizzed by Security

Local Channel 5 | Wednesday, December 31, 2003 | Kristinn

[kristinn]

D.C. Fox affiliate WTTG-5 reported a few minutes ago that British Airways flight 223 has been detained on the tarmac at Dulles Airport, Virginia, just outside Washington, D.C.

The flight landed at 7:06 p.m. Passengers have not been allowed to deplane. Some family members waiting at the terminal were able to speak with some of the passengers via cellphone. They were told TSA and other security personnell are interviewing passengers and inspecting luggage.

Over two hundred passengers and crew are on the plane.

More to follow as reported. Please forgive any errors as this just caught my ear.

[glock rocks]

Please aim your guns toward the east ...

... um ... okay.

[angkor]

they have one rolled up next to the plane and stairs attached to it.

That means they wanted them to get off the plane without even transiting the terminal. Down the stairs, into the "people mover" and straight to customs. That's not normal procedure at Dulles.

[tubebender]

Home made cannon shooting golf balls at your house ?

[Benrand]

BUSHWOOD A DUMP?!?!

[Humidston]

At Simpson's by chance?

[maestro]

Why else would they want to confirm seat assignments? Another reason could be that they identified a particular passenger with a deadly, contagious disease (e.g., Ebola) and want to know who was seated nearby.

You got the idea.

:-(

[Johnny_Cipher]

Can I eat your fat?

SPAULDING!!!

[prairiebreeze]

American authorities in the last week ordered a United States-bound flight from Mexico to turn around in midair

Whoa! Is this new? I hadn't read this!

Prairie

[nuffsenuff]

LOL!!

But you can't see my house from the course... There's woods in between. It would take a really lucky shot..

Funny though!

[cajungirl]

thanks!

[Dog]

Its new..... look on the news forum someone just posted it in a thread from the New York Times.

[medscribe]

Nobody is buried in Grant's Tomb. It's above ground, so technically Grant and his wife are interred there :-).

[sfRummygirl]

"You'll get NOTHING and LIKE IT!"

[prairiebreeze]

contagious disease (e.g., Ebola

Aways a subject sure to send shivers down the spine.

Prairie

[Domestic Church]

"why would they need the passengers to prove seat assignments"

Either to see who might have placed something or to see who might have been exposed to something?

[Hand em their arse]

"Oh no, you're in for half an eighty thousand"

[cibco]

"They are looking for a specific passenger."

How do you know?

[Johnny_Cipher]

True (assuming there were empty seats) I guess.

[kcvl]

British Airways Passengers Questioned

Thursday January 1, 2004 3:46 AM


WASHINGTON (AP) - FBI and Homeland Security Department officials boarded a British Airways jet shortly after it landed at Dulles International Airport Wednesday night and detained passengers for about three hours, officials said.

Transportation Safety Administration spokeswoman Jennifer Marty said passengers aboard Flight 223 from London's Heathrow Airport to Dulles were questioned aboard the plane, which landed at 7:20 p.m. EST. Officials began allowing passengers off the plane around 10:30 p.m.

Homeland Security Department spokeswoman Rachel Sunbarger said the baggage on board the flight was undergoing additional screening.

The plane was being kept several hundred feet from the terminal just as a precaution until questioning was finished, an official said on condition of anonymity.

The official declined to say what specifically led to the quarantine of the plane, but cited the recent increase in the U.S. terror alert status.