Posted on 11/20/2004 11:34:28 PM PST by FairOpinion
WASHINGTON U-S Customs officials have detained two passengers from an Air France flight bound for Dulles International Airport near Washington.
Transportation Security Administration officials say the plane was diverted to Bangor, Maine because they discovered that one of the passengers is on the U-S no-fly list. The plane eventually flew on to Dulles - arriving more than two hours late.
T-S-A spokeswoman Yolanda Clark says the other person detained was traveling with the banned passenger. Both are in the custody of local law enforcement in Bangor.
She says T-S-A is investigating why the passenger was allowed to board the plane in Paris.
Passengers, who didn't know there was a problem until they crossed into U-S air space, say everything went smoothly. Some were alarmed when they heard about the incident.
I disagree. The real question is, why are we still allowing landing rights to French flag airplanes in the US? As illustrated by this and other incidents, their security is a joke.
Yeah, I was thinking about Gore when I posted - the man has blood on his hands that will never wash off and Daschle's wife had a little something to do with that along with Gorelick.
You are right...Maine is the first point of entry into the US from Europe. I work here in Bangor at the Airport and was on the tarmac when that Air France 777 came down. I was catering an MD-11 full of US soldiers bound for Iraq. You should have seen all the police cars on the tarmac.
Actually, Bangor is in the red section of a blue state...most of northern maine went Bush.
hmmmmmmmmm - very intersting....
Why are we letting ANY French into our country??? Chirac and his cronies are proven enemies of the United States.
If I had my way we would bring all our boys home that are buried in that POS country.
Air France, say no more.
It's funny you say that...as we watched it land, one of the flight attendants on the plane I was catering said "What is that plane doing here?" My answer was instant and obvious..."Surrendering!" Even the soldiers on board the plane got a chuckle from that one.
I was told once that planes coming from Europe don't fly straight across, but at an arc, so Maine in the first US land they would encounter. Don't know if it is true, but...
In navigational circles, I think it's called "The Great Circle" route which is the shortest whether by ship or air!!!
Dollars to donuts, this was intentional. France means us harm and explicitly to President Bush, same as the Chilean security guards. We need to be more careful than ever. They wish us ill.
I'll tell you what...I flew on Air France about a month ago (Paris - Houston). The security was lax to say the least. I was scared to get on that flight. I've been through security in Frankfurt, London, DC, etc. But, Paris security is almost nil. Paris has surrended to the islamists. What a freaking shame.
100% true...but remember the earth is curved...so if you flatten the earth the flight path is really a staight line.
can you have an arc on a sphere...hum.....
I agree, some of these TSA people really are incompetent. A seemingly coked up sort of guy at an E. coast airport recently threatened to put my 60 year mom on the "no fly list" for asking security to pass me my boarding pass so she wouldn't have to go through security w/ all our luggage again - when I innocently forgot my boarding pass (but NOT my ID) when going to get a Frapuccino. I had just been through security 5 minutes earlier too. A TSA agent at our connecting airport told us that this happens all the time, and that the agents in fact do honor such requests to pass the boarding pass to a person who has already been through security and forgot their pass when passing BACK through security to go to Starbucks, etc.
The guy was utterly stupid, and made a big stink of his ability to put her on the "no fly list" for absolutely nothing. I've always been a pretty big supporter of Homeland Security - but some of these TSA people are nutso - and scaring innocent Americans for no good reason. And while they're busy scaring the innocent, who knows what real bad guy could be slipping through.
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