Replies

Schlussel looks like an ass in this. She calls Robinson a passenger on the flight. In his own statement, which she posts, he says he was NOT a passenger on the flight, but was on another flight. He says he saw NOTHING of the original incident.

Wake up people! It's all BS!

He saw enough and talked to people...you wake up and quit reading that liberal rag AJC.

From an Atlanta Journal Constitution article yesterday:

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.