British Airways Flight 216 Held at Dulles Airport Tonight

Local Channel 9 | Thursday, January 1, 2004 | Kristinn

[kristinn]

WUSA-TV 9 in Washington, D.C. reported on their 11 p.m. news that yet another British Airways flight is being scrutinized by federal agents at Dulles Airport.

Flight 216, scheduled to depart hours ago, is being kept from takeoff while its passengers and luggage are rescreened.

[tgslTakoma]

...the 40 passengers that were programmed to fly...

Programmed to fly?

Those Rooters News people sure write weird.

[livius]

Bad translation. The Spanish word was probably "programados," and should have been translated by "scheduled."

[Dave S]

There really should be an explaination as to why the inspections weren't done properly the first time. We have no control over what happens in other nations, so I have no problem with the extra screening which occurred last night. But this is goofy. If our baggage screeners were doing their jobs properly, a second screening shouldn't be necessary.

1) What makes you think YOU deserve an explaination. I for one dont want our strategies communicated to the enemy.

2) Who said the screeners did anything wrong? Why so quick to attack those who are working their tales off to protect your sorry ass. From what I read earlier some of the chatter referred to specific flights, specific airlines, and specific routes and what Homeland Security appears to be doing is using fighters to escort flights they are concerned about to Dulles Airport where they are rescreened before the flights are allowed to continue cross country to Las Vegas or Los Angeles, etc.

[recalcitrant]

Makes me wonder if they are playing games with the departure schedule for some other reason.

---

good guess.

[ClancyJ]

Right - possibly the screeners flagged something for further review and the Feds reviewed and acted.

This will make the terrorists play havoc with their scheduling and timetables. Possibly these are the flights with the Al Qaeda connected pilots.

[recalcitrant]

.I just hope that people don't start regarding it as "much ado about nothing"....

---

If they prevent something from happening, it MUST be treated as classified so we won't reveal HOW we knew. If they don't prevent anything, dems will scream "homeland security is a bunch of bumblers acting on failed intelligence... bush's fault."

Either way we are going to get nothing but bad press over this stuff.
I suspect they are getting something useful or they would stop following this course of action. It could also be a ruse to make folks think we are acting on one piece of intel, while we are actually getting ready to do something REALLY big in another arena.

I vote for the latter.

[trussell]

I read earlier that one passenger, a middle eastern woman, was questioned-repeatedly-about why she wasn't traveling with her husband.

That's all I've heard so far.

[nopardons]

That's all I've heard too, but thanks.

If anything untoward has been prevented, then hooray! Better safe than sorry.

[nicmarlo]

I think that woman passenger who was questioned was on an entirely different British Airways flight, the one from this a.m., not from tonight.

[HarryCaul]

Flightarrivals.com still shows it 'not departed', BA's site still show it is departed. So who knows?

[nicmarlo]

At British Airways site, I did a "reversal" check, this time on its arrival on Jan 2. This is what it showed:

Flight Number BA0216

Departing from IAD

Arriving at LHR

Scheduled Time of Arrival 02 Jan 06:55
Time of Arrival Estimated or Actual 09:49 estimated

[HarryCaul]

Interesting. I suppose it's actually in the air then.

[nicmarlo]

I assume it must be. If not, they'd have LOTS of angry family members, who, no doubt, are looking up the same information so they know when to pick up their family members arriving in London.....not good to post estimated arrival time, etc., if the plane isn't acutally in the air. From what I understand, no aircraft company posts any actual/estimated arrival time unless the plane's in the air.

[oceanview]

yes but think about what you are saying: is the best we can do just jumble the flight schedules to throw them off? we can't figure out who on the plane are the terrorists? that's pretty bad if true.

i can only hope that not everyone got off those planes, even after questioning, that we detained someone.

[Dr. Eckleburg]

Maybe some of the passengers from this afternoon's canceled BA flight #0222 from Dulles to Heathrow were given seats on this "delayed" flight #216.

If so, perhaps HS and FBI were still looking at some of the same people of interest.

[Scutter]

Looking for that case of scotch...

[beaversmom]

I might take up heavy drinking, if it gets much more interesting

Have no fear. Yellowstone's going to explode soon so we won't have much longer to worry about Osama and the gang.

[Dr. Eckleburg]

Think any of the passengers from canceled flight #0222 were re-booked on flight #216; thus the delay?

[ZAKJAN]

I go along with the some kind of "transfer" theory..


JAn