Security incident aboard AirTran Flight 297 suggests terror "Dry Run"

Canada Free Press ^ | December 3,2009 | Doug Hagmann

[AlaskaErik]

I'm thinking these diaperheads just want to shake down the airline, kind of like Jesse Jackson shakes down corporations.

[cyn]

On Nov 18 right after this incident, Atlanta Constitution ran a glossed version with no followup that I can find:

FAA to investigate cell phone use on Atlanta flight -- http://www.ajc.com/news/atlanta/faa-to-investigate-cell-202143.html

Posted to FR at http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2399187/posts post 8 by Cindy

FAA to investigate cell phone use on Atlanta flight

By Alexis Stevens and Kristi Swartz

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

The Federal Aviation Administration is investigating what led to the two-and-a-half hour delay of a Tuesday flight from Atlanta to Houston, an agency spokeswoman said Wednesday morning.

An AirTran spokesman said a man traveling with a group Tuesday afternoon refused to turn his cell phone off before takeoff. But the woman sitting behind the man said it wasn't a phone at all, and feels the entire incident was the result of poor communication.

"He was not talking on a cell phone, it was a camera," said Nancy Deveikis of Marietta. "He was looking at pictures." A flight attendant asked the man twice to turn off the device, Deveikis said. But it was clear the man did not speak English, she said. Although the man was traveling with others, the rest of the group was seated throughout the plane.

When the man did not respond to the flight attendant, she took the camera from him, Deveikis said. Deveikis, who presented ajc.com with her boarding pass for the flight, said she watched the exchange from directly behind the man in seat 28A and the female flight attendant.

"She grabbed it from his hand and basically said I'll be holding this until you get off the plane,"Deveikis said.

INTERESTING, an account by a woman passenger is that it wasn't a cell phone, it was a camera and the poor innocent passenger couldn't understand English, it was all just a misunderstanding.

But her account does not square with what others observed and reported. She was in the front, didn't see as much, but hard to believe she was unaware of other interactions as other passengers seemed to be.

[cyn]

The above is an excerpt; go to source to see entire article as it's all important:

.....“Passengers are required to follow instructions of the flight attendants," regional FAA spokeswoman Kathleen Bergen said. AirTran reported the incident to the FAA, Bergen said.

The federal Transportation Security Administration will not handle the incident, saying it is a customer-service issue between the passenger and the airline, a TSA spokesman said.......

"Just one flight attendant snowed everyone into believing she had an irate passenger," Deveikis said.

Still, airline officials contend the right action was taken.

“It’s a fine line that we have to play,” White said. “Is there any safety or security reason to bring the plane back? Yes, there was a safety reason.”

White declined to identify the passenger. No charges were filed. And, for AirTran, the case is closed.

“Once we determine there is no other problem, it’s our responsibility to get everyone back on and get the plane taken off as quickly as we can,” White said.

[Calm_Cool_and_Elected]

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[cyn]

Go Quinn and Rose --- http://www.warroom.com/

I want to know why TSA isn't all over this. It is most certainly not just a customer service matter. Lots of things need to be examined here.

The federal Transportation Security Administration will not handle the incident, saying it is a customer-service issue between the passenger and the airline, a TSA spokesman said.

[AppyPappy]

“Why weren’t these passengers charged?”

Probably because the account in the viral email isn’t accurate. A witness said it was a camera, not a cell phone. There is no first class section on that flight. Etc. How could a person in “first class” hear a conversation in the back of the plane?

As with most accounts, the truth makes for a less compelling viral email.

[ryan71]

It’ll take a nuclear explosion in an American city for people to stop making excuses for radical Islam.

Nothing less.

[cyn]

“Just because you are paranoid doesn’t mean they’re not out to get you” comes to mind!

I would love for you to be right, but just because it’s in a viral email doesn’t mean it’s not true.

There’s more to it, let’s see what that is. There are names coming out now, let there be a free flow of information on this.

[tanknetter]

Probably not a dry run, but creating a “look at us, we’re poor, oppresses, muslim victims” situation.

The fact that they went after a smaller carrier (AirTran), which can’t absorb the impacts from a profiling lawsuit like the larger carriers can, is a pretty good indication of what their motivations are. As is how it happened on the 3rd anniversary of USAir 300.

There are two possible solutions to this. First, it’s time to put video cameras into airplane cabins, just like many jurisdictions do with busses (school and regular), subways and the like. Loss of privacy for the passengers, yes ... but it’ll both act as a deterrent to this sort of nonsense and provide a visual/audible record for use in defense of lawsuits and possible prosecutions.

Second, there should be a pool of Air Marshal “floaters” staged at every airport. This kind of sh*t happens and the airline is required to allow the disruptors back onto the plane, a couple guys with visible badges and guns go on board as well and sit in the front and rear jumpseats. Again, this acts as both a deterrent and an additional set of eyes (LEO eyes) to whatever continues to transpire. It’ll also help calm the passengers who choose to stay on board.

[Renegade]

Good thing the A hole on the phone wasn’t sitting next to me!

[AppyPappy]

“but just because it’s in a viral email doesn’t mean it’s not true.”

Double-negative. I think you mean:

but just because it’s in a viral email doesn’t mean it’s true.

The very nature of viral emails is that they report things that can’t be easily verified. They are designed to “tickle the ears” so to speak.

[cyn]

Dry run (heading into holiday travel season) -vs- lawsuit baiters -vs- internet hoax

I want to know why we don’t have a better answer to such nonsense as this?

[cyn]

Simple solution, then: let it be scrutinized to find where the truth lies.

Let the facts come out.

[ronniesgal]

thank you for posting this. Scary scary stuff.

[CharlesWayneCT]

I still doubt the accuracy of this e-mail. But for purposes of this thread, I will first bring up one obvious error. The existance of one obvious error does not necessarily mean other items are wrong, but necessarily cast doubt on other facts mentioned in the e-mail.

Quoting from the main article, which appears to be well-researched:

According to flight logs and information from one of the flight crew who continued with the flight, AirTran 297 ultimately departed Atlanta and arrived in Houston later that evening. Quoting from the e-mail:

Due to the amount of people who got off that flight, it was cancelled.

It is clear the flight was not cancelled

On another point, the main article states:

Some passengers and flight crew, traumatized by the blatant actions of the Muslim passengers, refused to travel with the Muslims who caused this orchestrated disturbance.

This strongly suggests that only a few passengers got off, and only a portion of the flight crew (my guess would be the flight attendants who were accosted verbally by people who were allowed back on the plane.

the e-mail states that the entire flight crew left the plane, to be replaced 5 minutes later. But there is no way an entire flight crew left a plane unattended with passengers in it. Even IF the crew was all leaving, the cockpit personnel would have waited for the replacements to arrive.

SOme of the e-mail is corroberated by the main article, although off in details (that could easily be gotten wrong in a true story), like the number of muslims (13, rather than 11), or that only 10-11 were left back on, not the original two that caused the problem.

I also didn't know how the e-mail passenger could know what people in the back of the plane were watching on a video; the main article gives no indication that ANY passenger was able to identify what they were watching, and a stewardess said she thought they were filming.

My GUESS from this article is that these men decided to cause trouble, in the hopes that they could film people acting badly so they could raise sympathy for their cause (they seem to be part of a radical muslim organization according to the article).

But that tells me that if the man in this e-mail had actually man-handled one of the muslims, and his texas friend had done the same, that we would have seen a video of it, or the muslim organization would have issued a press release about how innocent muslims were being beat up on planes by white guys.

Since there has been no mention about this incident from the muslim organization, it is my OPINION that nothing happened on the plane that the organization could use to make their case, which means i think that there was no attack on them.

It's all speculation -- I don't KNOW that the e-mail is false, and I would have a tendency to believe the e-mail more if the passenger who reportedly wrote the e-mail was interviewed on TV -- all we have is an e-mail from someone we don't know, which CONTAINED an e-mail from a supposed passenger.

[QQQQ]

“How could a person in “first class” hear a conversation in the back of the plane?”
1.Aircraft at the gate-engines off.
2.Domestic flight-Airbus 320/321.Small aircraft.
3.Someone speaks loud-you can hear it for sure :-))
4.Try to fly 1st class more often:-)))

[CharlesWayneCT]

About my last point — when I last saw this e-mail, it was put in a thread as an e-mail from a person in florida, who had received an e-mail from someone on the flight.

If you are in fact the person in florida, and therefore actually know the passenger on the flight and can vouch for him, that would raise the credibility for me. I didn’t think about that possibility; I took your “an e-mail I received” to be the general “there’s an e-mail going around, and someone sent it to me”.

[AppyPappy]

There is no first class on that jet. It’s just business class. Hence the suspicion. You’d think a passenger would know that. If the engines were off, you can use a phone. You just can’t use it during takeoff.

[cyn]

THANKS for bringing up questionable points. I find it interesting that the only reason this story is coming to light is because of a suspicious viral email.

Let the info come out however it will.