Posted on 12/05/2009 7:53:36 AM PST by Irisshlass
An airline is fending off charges fueled by a widely circulated e-mail that an incident on a flight from Atlanta to Houston, reported by news media as minor, actually bore the marks of a "dry run" by Muslim terrorists.
The e-mail account of a purported passenger on AirTran Flight 297 on Nov. 17, bolstered by a separate investigation by Northeast Intelligence Network, contends that about a dozen Muslim men in "full attire" who were spread throughout the jet as it taxied to the runway caused a disturbance prompting pilots to return to the gate and bring law enforcement officers onboard.
The airline, at its InsideAirTran website, denied many of the claims made in the e-mail, which purportedly was written by a passenger, Tedd Petruna of Houston, and circulated by a friend, A. Gene Hackemack. Neither Petruna nor Hackemack responded immediately to WND requests for commentAfter first rebutting Petruna's written account point by point, AirTran later posted on its site a denial that the e-mailer was even on the flight, writing: "After conducting additional research into this situation, we have verified, according to flight manifests (legally binding documents) that the individual that allegedly created a first-hand account of events on-board AirTran Airways flight 297, a Theodore Petruna, was never actually on-board the flight."
Yet questions remain, such as why was the flight crew was changed after a supposedly minor disturbance and why several passengers were so distraught that they refused to continue on to their destination after the men involved were allowed to reboard the airplane.
Now, KHOU in Houston reports the Federal Aviation Administration has begun investigating.
(Excerpt) Read more at wnd.com ...
Perhaps, but I know you like to cover up for the government regarding airplane stuff. Remember this one:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1461454/posts?q=1&;page=1
It's like the game of “telephone.” Everyone adds 10% so they have a better bar story.
It is all overblown, and we are the real victims if we believe it.
Because he was in the area when the flight taxied back in.
Get some critical thinking going here.
The man who started it all lied.
If that is so, then it still indicates that something indeed happened.... that was significant enough for him to have noticed. Like I said, rather than get an ego boost out of acting like the “intelligent” skeptic, use your reporter skills and find out for yourself.
http://www.gillreport.com/index.php Podcast
Steve Gill - December 3, 2009 Hr 3
LIVE from the Opryland Hotel and Convention Center; D
Steve Gill spoke to Tedd Petruno and this interview above is 45 mins with Dr. Keith Robinson.
Why didn’t the AJC interview him, he is available.
It seems we have some CAIR apologists on here, spreading phony “debunking” stories about an actual incident — much like that Liberal site, Snopes.
Dr. Keith Robinson is also a Corps Commander of the Houston Regional Community Chaplain Corps.
This is a name and it is not BS.
We now know Steve Gill, and everyone else, was conned by Petruno, because Petruno could not have seen what he claims to have seen, that set off entire story.
The real story here is, why is our Conservative Internet Community so willing to believe a story that was so easily disproved.
We NEED more critical thinking, or we will end up chasing our tails.
Robinson SAW nothing. He came up afterwards.
Wake up people! It's all BS!
IOW, make him prove a negative?
No, ... to do some research since he has the skills to do so. I think its a fair request.
He saw enough and talked to people...you wake up and quit reading that liberal rag AJC.
According to AirTran, shortly after 4:40 p.m. on Nov. 17, Flight 297 bound for Houston taxied toward the runway of Atlanta's Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport. But before the Boeing 717 made it to the runway, the pilot made the decision to return the plane to the gate. A flight attendant asked a male passenger twice to put away a cell phone or camera.
At the gate, the passenger -- who didn't speak English -- and a companion were asked to leave the plane, which they did without incident, the airline reported.
When it was determined the problem was caused by a language barrier, AirTran and TSA officials allowed the man, and 12 others traveling with him to re-board, and the flight left for Houston a little more than two hours later. Later, officials said the entire incident was the result of a miscommunication.
Nancy Deveikis was seated in seat 29A aboard Flight 297, directly behind an unidentified man who she believes spoke Spanish. Deveikis said the man was looking at pictures on a camera, and did not understand a flight attendant's requests to turn the device off.
Principled and MindBender, you two actually believe that a domestic U.S. flight with 60-plus passengers bound for Texas, for God's sake, had NO ONE on board that could translate for a Spanish-only passenger a simple "turn off your electronic device, please" request, and that therefore that plane had to RETURN TO THE GATE?
Puh-leeeeeeeeeeze.
You actually believe that of the other 12 passengers "accompanying" the fellow tossed off the plane who were returned later to the plane as reported in this acount, not one of them could translate from English to Spanish for their traveling companion?
You actually BELIEVE as sufficient a report quoting ONE passenger on the plane, seated behind the offending passsenger, a witness so dense that she didn't know for sure whether or not the guy in front of her was speaking Spanish or some other language?
In short, you actually believe that a plane bound for the American Southwest, was forced to the extreme measure of returning to the gate and disembarking passengers AND crew because of ONE possibly SPANISH-only passenger who wouldn't turn off his camera when asked?
Get real. I don't pretend to know what did or didn't happen with Petruna or the Chaplain, but I DO know -- and YOU SHOULD TOO -- that the scenario implied in the AJC report of yesterday is no more believable than the claim that Santa and his reindeers came and towed that plane back to the gate.
You're right. And you can start by applying some critical thinking of your own to the AJC excerpt I posted above; it's also easy enough to apply that critical thinking to the whole article here.
I don't claim to know what did happen, but I sure as hell know what DIDN'T happen.
No, you misread. I do not believe this story. I assert that it didn’t happen.
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