[Rutles4Ever]

You may need a stiff drink after this...

[MineralMan]

After reading the entire article, I realize that nothing actually happened on the flight. Suspicious activity? Perhaps. But the flight went on, landed safely, and nothing untoward happened.

I refuse to live in fear of everyone who doesn't look like me.

[The Mayor]

"On September 21, as the remains of thousands of Americans lay smoldering at Ground Zero, [Secretary of Transportation Norman] Mineta fired off a letter to all U.S. airlines forbidding them from implementing the one security measure that could have prevented 9/11: subjecting Middle Eastern passengers to an added degree of pre-flight scrutiny. He sternly reminded the airlines that it was illegal to discriminate against passengers based on their race, color, national or ethnic origin or religion."


no comment..

[diamond6]

Oh my God! Now this terrifies me.

[marty60]

This is really frightening. However, I doubt very much if the air marshalls would have hesitated to kill eveyone of them if an overt act occured. I agree it may have been a dry run. but, at least now the authorities KNOW their MO.

[Lokibob]

This story scared the hell out of me, and I wasn't on the plane.

[wildwood]

metro is my airport. this is unbelievable. i have gone through the "metal detector" with batteries in my pocket; it wasn't even turned on. they waved me on when i pointed it out. ugh.

[mlmr]

Air marshalls are powerless against in flight bombs. It is time for marshall law

[F-117A]

Bump for later reading.

[bboop]

HOOOOOOEEEEEYYYYY, that is some post. perhaps the passengers should be armed..

[evets]

need... stiff... drink...

[Jeff Head]

After reading the entire article. IMHO, they were casing the aircraft and carrying out some sort of practise run or drll.

The people we are fighting are not stupid and they will use our laws and liberties against us to the max if they can.

Sounds like the Federal Air Marshalls were there and that the authorities were on to the thing very early on. I believe in such circumstances it is warranted to act before on the basis of such behavior.

One thing is for sure...they are not going to get control of another aircraft and run it into a building. They may make it crash...but they will be resisted. Both by authorities on the plane and by passengers as was the case on Flight 93.

[petitfour]

I think I need to mark this one for hubby to read. And now's not the time for a stiff drink. Now's the time to be sober.

Dry run or not, there were a load of terrorized individuals on board that plane. Thankfully, they arrived safely to their destination.

I remember being in Det Metro once. Our toddler son had to go through security screening four or five times before he made it through. He had pants with multiple pockets, and all were loaded with keys. He used to collect keys, and he had to carry all of them with him wherever he went. The security was not so amused. I guess someone was watching them that day because they were very diligent. That was years ago.

[Bloody Sam Roberts]

Sounds like they witnessed a dry run of a future attack. It will come. We will be unprepared. The war will continue. I only pray that when it does happen, there is someone in the White House with the stones to escalate this war to a level commensurate with victory.

[gathersnomoss]

I am retinking my flight plans to and from the Northeast next month. No joke!

PC is going to kill many more people. You will see.

[LOC1]

If the passengers were concerned that something was going on in the lavatory, why didn't one of them go into the lavatory to check it out? Can't imagine that the hijackers could prevent anyone from entering the lavatory without tipping their hand and allowing the air marshals to act.

[Space Wrangler]

Absolutely amazing. This incident was at the very least a probe, and possibly an aborted strike. I'd like to think that these 14 men are at Gitmo now, but I think we all know better. I highly doubt that I could have sat through that flight for 4 1/2 hrs without doing anything. I would have been on a hair-trigger for sure. The truly sad thing is, that many more people are going to have to die before we realize we can't extend the same civil liberties to people from the same geographic areas and religion that has sworn to destroy us that we extend to our own. It all looks good on paper...until you get on that plane loaded with 14 ME swarthy males. I'd bet this lady who wrote the story is a recent convert to our way of thinking. One cross-country flight where her family and herself were at the tip of the spear was all it took.

I'll be circulating this story far and wide.

[Interesting Times]

Bump...

[diotima]

DO NOT miss this.

[mel]

btt

[al_c]

Wow! That story should be published in every newspaper in the States. Or for that matter, the world. But it never will be ... we're too PC for that to ever happen.