San Francisco-London flight cancelled over suspicious behavior
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.c...4/08/03/SFO.TMP
Virgin flight at SFO halted
Suspicious behavior of passengers was reported to officials
Steve Rubenstein and Charlie Goodyear, Chronicle Staff Writers
Tuesday, August 3, 2004
A Virgin Atlantic Airways flight bound for London from San Francisco International Airport was canceled Monday night after suspicious behavior by several passengers was reported to authorities.
Virgin's Flight 20, scheduled to leave at 4:30 p.m., was barred from departing "based on suspicious activity by some passengers,'' said Nico Melendez, a spokesman for the federal Transportation Security Administration. The FBI later took charge of the case, according to a San Francisco police spokesman.
Hundreds of passengers were taken off the flight and left waiting at the airport, with little explanation. A Virgin spokeswoman declined to comment on Monday night, and the airline's Web site listed the flight only as delayed.
Four hours after the flight was first scheduled to take off, it was canceled, according to a federal official.
Passengers interviewed at the Virgin ticketing desk described two situations on the plane. The first involved an unruly passenger who was drunk and who caused a disturbance. About 15 minutes after that passenger was removed, passengers said, the flight crew called five passengers holding Romanian passports to the front of the jet, according to passengers.
"They were five passengers they didn't like,'' said Jamie Schutmaat of Sacramento. "They were acting weird.''
After those five passengers were removed, the rest of the passengers were asked to leave the plane.
Passenger Joe Snyder of Carmel Valley said the captain of the flight announced, "There are some people on the plane that we do not feel comfortable flying with.''
Security officers came onboard, pulling up seat cushions and searching under the seats.
San Francisco police officers then searched the 747 aircraft, and a police sergeant later suggested the incident "got blown out of proportion.''
Sgt. Larry Ratti, a spokesman for the airport division of the San Francisco Police Department, said one disorderly passenger was detained and questioned but by late Monday night had not been arrested.
"My information from the officers that boarded the plane is that there was just one unruly passenger,'' Ratti said. "It was enough that for the safety of all the passengers we decided to search the entire plane. It's a big plane. You want to search it thoroughly, and it takes a while to search something like that.''
Ratti said officers did not find anything suspicious onboard the flight.
The canceled flight came a day after terror alerts for cities on the East Coast and warnings that London might be a target for terrorists.
After the flight was canceled, inconvenienced travelers were offered free hotel stays by the airline.
"At the end of the day, if it's not safe, it's not safe,'' said one passenger who would identity himself only as Fernando. "I don't mind. Better to be safe than sorry.''
E-mail the writers at
srubenstein@sfchronicle.com and
cgoodyear@sfchronicle.com.