Mystery Flight: Two passengers trigger alarms—and fresh echoes of 9/11.

Newsweek ^ | By Mark Hosenball and Michael Hirsh

[Brian Mosely]

Arpil 25 issue - It's part of the routine for air travel since 9/11. Fifteen minutes after KLM Flight 685 took off from Amsterdam for Mexico City on April 8, Mexican authorities forwarded the names of all the passengers to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. The reason: the flight was scheduled to pass through U.S. airspace after making a long swing over Canada. The information was then passed on to the U.S. National Targeting Center, based at a secret address in the Virginia suburbs of Washington, D.C. That's when the routine became extraordinary: by the time the Boeing 747 had finished its three-hour crossing of the Atlantic, Homeland Security screeners were on high alert. The names of two Saudi passengers aboard the KLM flight had begun producing "hits" on the screening center's lists of 70,000 suspect foreigners.

One of these hits—from an FBI database of terror suspects known as TIPOFF—smacked investigators right between the eyes. The two Saudis, the database reported, were brothers and pilots who had attended the same Arizona flight school as 9/11 hijacker Hani Hanjour. Soon the multiplicity of U.S. terror databases started pumping out similar hits. Fearing that Flight 685 might be a 9/11-style plot in the making, U.S. authorities refused the plane overflight rights, and Canada rejected a request to land. Much to the chagrin of its 278 passengers, the KLM jet made an exhausting odyssey back to Amsterdam.

< snip >

...in the past year, U.S. counterterrorism officials have cited intelligence indicating that Al Qaeda might be planning to use foreign-based airliners to launch attacks against the U.S. homeland. One U.S. counterterrorism official told NEWSWEEK that the two passengers were "bad dudes." And a European intelligence official said the two have "extensive but secondary" links to Al Qaeda.

[IronJack]

Maybe they weren't going to do anything on THIS flight, but I suspect they weren't headed to Mexico so they could sightsee the ruins at Tulum.

[NaughtiusMaximus]

Flight-free Lifestyle Reading List Ping.

[Gunrunner2]

Something about pre-screening the names, giving them to the government before takeoff was apparently some "civil rights" issue that only allows names to be passed after take-off. Can't recall the specifics, but that's the gist of it.

[Savage Rider]

So why don't passenger names go to the list for checking as soon as the ticket is booked? That would leave only a few to be checked as last minute purchasers and everyone should be checked before the flight takes off.

[rawhide]

Read this for another interesting post about what is happening in the skies above us:

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1385409/posts

[ancient_geezer]

The fact they forward the names AFTER take-off is problem.

Actually that would be a good thing, if they ejected them from the plane immediately.

Problem solved.

[nw_arizona_granny]

Ping to the rest of the story.

[kitkat]

***I heard yesterday that the government run TSA is no better than when it was civilian contracted. Gee! What a surprise that was. Another government run agency that is a waste of money.***

Blame it on the libs. They refused to vote for a private contractor. It had to be UNION-gov't workers.

[Calpernia]

WOW! Thanks for the ping!

[bitt]

if you see the next article by Jacobsen, ping me!

"next in the series, Annie Jacobsen Gets a Visit From the Feds,"