Posted on 12/06/2009 11:30:27 AM PST by campfollower
slideshow In the age of balloon boys and party crashers, regular people just don't know what to believe any more.
Last week, I spent more than my share of hours trying to track down the truth about an incident on an AirTran flight out of Atlanta on Nov. 17.
Flight 297 to Houston, with about 70 passengers onboard, departed gate C-16 at 4:43 p.m. Until something happened that caused the pilot to turn around and come back.
Two and a half weeks later, the incident is in high dispute, thanks to some passengers who have spoken out on the Internet about what they say is a cover-up by AirTran and other transportation officials. This has been heating up since Tuesday, when one passenger's e-mail about the events he saw on the plane went viral, and the saga isn't over yet.
Initial media reports from Nov. 18 indicate the cause of the plane's turnaround was a single passenger who refused to turn off an electronic device. Some accounts said cell phone, some said video camera, but the bottom line is the flight crew felt something was amiss enough to turn around after they'd left the gate - no small occurrence.
In the now infamous e-mail (AirTran refers to it on their Web site www.inside airtran.com as "Flight 297 - Anatomy of an Urban Legend") a Texas man writes about an orchestrated attempt by a group of 13 men, which he characterizes as Muslim, to intimidate flight attendants and passengers.
His colorful description of the troublemakers boarding the plane, spreading out to their seats and then being uncooperative and verbally abusive toward flight attendants and other passengers hit my mailbox Tuesday, having been forwarded by the writer's friend, a former Marine and NASA employee, who also included his name, address and phone number.
Even as people scrambled to substantiate the e-mail, Muslim and leftist Web sites began characterizing the writer and anyone who thought it might have merit as "right wing racists." They immediately initiated a campaign to discredit and ridicule the writer, who actually had the audacity to speak boldly about the escalating fear and anger on the flight, though he admitted to me yesterday he'd taken artistic license with a couple points, never imagining it would travel beyond his circle of friends. He's not a journalist, and has no wish to become the next Joe the Plumber, he said.
His account, not intended for publication, focused on Arabic-speaking men using a number of tactics to upset the aircraft, such as taking photos of passengers, getting up and down from their seats at inappropriate times and intimidating others. The e-mail has, unfortunately, overshadowed the real story.
From AirTran, we know that the captain of Flight 297 felt it necessary to turn his plane around after leaving the gate. Once there the troublemakers were removed and questioned in what turned into a two-hour delay. And then, amazingly, all but two were allowed to reboard for the trip to Houston.
What ensued, according to the disputed e-mail as well as a new and highly credible eyewitness, was a small rebellion on board, with crew and at least a dozen passengers refusing to continue the flight.
Meanwhile, another Texas eyewitness, Dr. Keith Robinson, had been scheduled on the flight, but had missed his connection. He told his version of "the obvious commotion" at the gate, and added by phone he had offered his services as an ordained chaplain during the two-hour delay, but was rebuffed by AirTran officials.
"Gate agents expressed solemn concern" after the plane returned, he said, so he knew something was amiss. When the crew and a dozen passengers finally deplaned, some were openly sobbing and "anger and fear were etched on their faces."
Robinson, a good-natured man of God who formerly worked in restorative prosthodontics at M.D. Anderson Cancer Center, eventually got on the plane.
"Chaplains are supposed to go where other people don't want to be," he explained. His account, also posted on the Internet, was written during the flight. He told me the Arabic-speaking men were quiet when he was on the flight, but that the tension was palpable. He believes the decision to allow the group back on the plane was based on fear of lawsuits.
"But is it inappropriate for Americans to stand together," he asked me, "draw a line in the sand and say this type of incident will not happen? Don't we have a duty to stand against this kind of intimidation?"
On Friday, AirTran spokesman Christopher White, formerly with the TSA, was snide and rude when I called to inquire about the incident. He refused to answer questions and referred me to the above-mentioned website, which is not an official statement from AirTran but a public rebuking of a customer's circulating e-mail. Note to Chris: putting a customer's writing on your site making him a target for death threats and ridicule seems rather irresponsible for a major airline. I hope someone reviews your qualifications as spokesperson.
Then, Saturday, AirTran went further, posting the assertion that the disputed e-mail writer from Texas, according to "legally binding" flight manifests, wasn't on the plane (just in case any of us believe the "urban legend" he supposedly made up out of thin air to get attention he isn't seeking,,, or something).
The e-mail writer told me today AirTran is lying and he has his boarding pass, but I'm beyond this by now, because I discovered another highly credible eyewitness to the incident was none other than Cobb businessman and security expert Brent C. Brown, CEO of Chesley-Brown International.
Brown, who is also chairman of the Marietta History Museum, confirmed late Saturday that he was on Flight 297 and that there was chaos on the plane. He believes the entire incident was mishandled by AirTran officials, though has kind words for the pilot, who he said, "was dead right" in his decision-making, and is to be commended for turning the plane around.
Seated in the third row in business class, he said it was obvious the suspicious men were interacting with each other and refusing to sit down, grounds for the pilot's decision.
Once back at the gate, however, Brown says there were no law enforcement officials visible (this contradicts the Texan's e-mail) and airline officials weren't talking to the passengers, who were openly upset and refusing to fly.
"The tension on board was incredible," Brown said. The men who came back on board after questioning were belligerent and smirking, and the people who got off, he confirmed, were traumatized.
So the story evolves. And in this age of jihadi Army officers and internet hoaxes, us regular folk continue to seek the truth.
Lbarmstrong3378@comcast.net
You’re the gullible one, dear.
This part is tough to swallow. I know a whole lot of people who are "fast with the fists", so to speak, who would take "intimidation" from a filthy muzzie for, oh, 1.5 seconds before smashing somebody in the face, plane or no plane. It defies the odds to think there was nobody like this on that plane.
And noxious to boot. I say, ban him. Let him go to some forum with the "magical terrorists".
Ping; you guys need to see this one.
I’ve heard of Chesley-Brown, and think they’re likely pretty credible. I have an old business acquaintance I need to call to keep in touch with anyway, who I think would know more about them. He designs commercial physical security systems, and they’re in the security business.
Thanks. Please keep us posted on what you find out.
Has something been bent . . . to the breaking point?
Who’s side are you on?
Then certainly you will be able to post links to the stations plus the names of these folks and also youtubes or radio archives from the shows. If what you say here is true, I would like to stand corrected and it would be a valuable and interesting learning experience, as so far I have maintained that the more information that comes out, the more likely it appears that something dirty CERTAINLY went down and officials are scrambling to make it go away without notice.
Problem was resolved when they found a translator. This is not unusual. Happens about 20-50 times a week somewhere in US because of language problems, drunk or sick passengers, etc.
How do you know this? And how does this fit into what AirTran and TSA officials confirm, which is that a total of 13 or 14 individuals were ultimately involved in a party that was traveling together? How could a party that large NOT have one among them that could quickly resolve the translator problem?
Please, I am awaiting your explanation. Explain a plausible scenario for no one among the party being able to translate. If had been ZERO info or response from AirTran or the TSA, or if there had been outright denial of the whole thing, I'd be inclined to agree with you. But the very fact that AirTran and the TSA have responded with exceedingly weak and lame explanations, it rather CONFIRMS that this is a classic case of an internet-driven EXPOSE.
READ LAST 3 PARAGRAPHS FIRST. ALSO, DOUGLAS HAGAMANN????? You have got to be kidding!
AirTran ‘hero’ wasn’t on plane, By Alexis Stevens
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
It’s a little easier to understand why a Houston man who claimed to have thwarted a potential terrorist attack on a flight leaving Atlanta has not answered repeated requests to tell his story.
“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,” AirTran said in a statement, which the The Atlanta Journal-Constitution was the first to obtain.
An e-mail from a Tedd Petruna, in which he told the AJC via a Facebook message Friday was intended only for friends and family, made the rounds online this week after a friend apparently forwarded it to others. In a matter of days, Petruna’s account appeared in chat rooms and blogs and on conspiracy theorists’ Web sites.
The AJC was forwarded the e-mail dozens of times this week, as readers saw Petruna’s tale and noticed conflicting information between it and earlier news reports of the flight delay Nov. 17. Some readers simply asked the AJC to further investigate the matter.
But others who forwarded the message accused the AJC of participating in a politically correct cover-up.
The intriguing story made for intense fodder among bloggers.
Petruna’s story appeared in a blog on the Web site for The Project 9.12, a group started by Fox News commentator Glenn Beck. A Canadian news site picked up the story. Dallas Morning News airline columnist Terry Maxon made it the subject of his blog for a second time this week on Friday. And snopes.com, a Web site that sniffs out rumors to decipher between fact and fiction, followed the story.
In its continued investigation into the incident, the AJC made several attempts to speak to Petruna about the incident. He has declined throughout the week to respond to repeated e-mail and phone attempts by the AJC to talk to him. That last request was made Saturday.
Additionally, AJC interviews with people on the plane, airline officials and federal agencies did not corroborate his story.
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 decided to return the plane to the gate. A flight attendant had apparently asked a male passenger twice to put away a cellphone or camera, but the man had not done so. The flight attendant then took the device from the man.
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 Transportation Security Administration officials allowed the man, and 12 others traveling with him, to reboard, 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 directly behind the unidentified man on the flight. She believes he spoke Spanish. Deveikis said the man was looking at pictures on a camera and did not understand the flight attendant’s requests to turn the device off.
Petruna’s account was drastically different. It was forwarded to others by A. Gene Hackemack, who vouched for him as a former NASA colleague. Petruna claimed he witnessed an incident involving Middle Eastern passengers on the flight and attempted to stop the incident from escalating.
“I grabbed the man who had been on the phone by the arm and said ‘you will go sit down or you will be thrown from this plane,’ “ Petruna wrote. Continuing, Petruna said 11 men dressed in “full attire” speaking Arabic got on the plane together.
Hackemack, when reached by telephone earlier this week at his Texas home, stood by the story and gave the AJC a home phone number for Petruna. Hackemack did not respond to a request for comment Friday by the AJC.
“Thank God for people like Tedd Petruna,” wrote Hackemack wrote in the e-mail he forwarded.
Keith Robinson didn’t make it to the gate in time to board Flight 297 for its initial attempt to depart. Robinson, a Texas chaplain, said he watched as upset crew members and passengers poured back into the terminal after the incident on the plane.
“You could tell something was going on,” Robinson told the AJC. Robinson said a passenger getting off the plane asked him whether he intended to get on the plane and fly to Houston.
“I’m a chaplain, that’s where I’m supposed to be,” Robinson said he told the man.
Robinson said the flight to Houston was a quiet one, giving him time to write down his account of what he had seen.
“The feeling that I have from what I observed is there was intentional intimidation,” Robinson said. “It was almost an ethnic bullying situation.”
Robinson recounted what he witnessed for reporters at KHOU-TV in Houston on Thursday. Petruna, however, told the station that he could not appear on camera.
In an e-mail to the AJC Saturday evening, Robinson said whether or not Petruna was on the flight, the incident aboard the plane caused fear among the flight’s crew members.
A replacement flight crew was brought on board, but that is not uncommon, AirTran said. A delay such as this one could quickly affect scheduling for later flights, according to AirTran spokesman Christopher White.
“We have reserve crews ready to jump in at a moments notice,” White said late Saturday.
Friday afternoon, AirTran responded to Petruna’s allegations in a point-by-point response to his e-mail, posted on the airline’s internal Web site and made available to the media.
“There are no reports of any passenger standing up in a threatening manner,” according to the AirTran statement. “At no time was there any physical altercation between passengers.”
Although AirTran previously had declined to release the flight manifest, that changed Friday evening. In addition to discounting Petruna’s story, the airline responded to the amount of attention it believed the circulated e-mail was gaining, White said.
There was no way Petruna could have seen what he described on Flight 297, AirTran said in a statement. Petruna departed from Akron-Canton, Ohio, on AirTran Flight 205 on Nov. 17, officials said. He was supposed to connect to Flight 297 for Houston, but he missed his first flight out of Ohio. And therefore, he missed the connecting flight.
AirTran said Flight 297 first left its gate at 4:40 p.m., “a full 26 minutes before Flight 205 arrived at the gate in Atlanta, making this flight connection impossible.”
http://www.khou.com/news/local/AirTran-e-mail-stirs-up-Internet-firestorm-78474802.html
In his original story, he was the big hero, virtually breaking up a hijacking in progress.
It's all BS! It was all one big attempt by this idiot at selfagrandizement.
Please link the AJC report or reports you mean. I linked to one on one of these threads, and it could hardly be called "extensive." Indeed, it was vague and one of the main reasons I am inclined to think this story is legit as a case of a terrorism cover-up.
So ... please link to the articles you have in mind when you use the word "extensive work" to describe them. Either I missed them (and would be very glad to see them now) or you, like many good Americans and FReepers, have yet to figure out word tricks used by writers (I'm one who specializes in it by profession) to make readers think they read something they didn't.
Honestly, I would be able to at link to the hosts or the call letters of the stations if it was me making the claim, and I'd probably even go to the trouble to call them or email them to get the specific names. TV and radio stations DO keep program logs, you know! Hosts generally ARE able to tell you who they invterviewed last month!
Oh, having been a network TV reporter for about 35 years, I do know a little about how stories are kept,,, and about stories that don't pass the smell test.
Let's go to the base line here. The original person, the one who now admits he made most of it up, and who AirTran has proved wasn’t even on the flight, is the only one who claims to have witnessed anything involving Muslims at all!
It's all BS.
End of discussion.
If you were REALLY a network TV reporter for 35 years, then you would pretty quickly be able to use that inside knowledge to verify solidly your claim that:
TV and radio stations in Houston have interviewed dozens who were all aboard flight, including three local Texas cops and about a dozen US military. None of the Muslim stuff occurred
If you were REALLY practiced in spotting vague and evasive reporting, you'd have immediately noticed that it runs rampant in this AJC article of Friday.
THAT article confirms from AirTran and/or the TSA that:
1. The pilot decided to return flight 297 to the gate because a male passenger had twice been asked to put away an undetermined electronic device, didn't do so, and the flight attendant took the device away from him.
2. The passenger didn't speak English. He and a companion were asked to leave the plan.
3. The man and 12 others traveling with him were allowed to reboard the plan and it left for Houston a little more than two hours later. The entire incident is described as a communication problem with language; among all those travelling companions, none could spoke the same langage and could have served as an interpreter on the plane and nipped the incident in the bud.
That a so-called experience network TV reporter of 35 years wouldn't recognize that at this point with this information so hazily provided by the AJC, Petruna, Robinson, and Hackemack become irrelevant to the real story ... explains why the MSM is what it is today.
You're all B.S. End of discussion.
But ... you've conveniently declared, "End of discussion."
I think you're phonier than Petruna. Petruna exaggerated and made himself a hero, but at least his nose for something that smelled rotten was real.
THAT article confirms from AirTran and/or the TSA that:
1. The pilot decided to return flight 297 to the gate because a male passenger had twice been asked to put away an undetermined electronic device, didn't do so, and the flight attendant took the device away from him.
2. The passenger didn't speak English. He and a companion were asked to leave the plan.
3. The man and 12 others traveling with him were allowed to reboard the plan and it left for Houston a little more than two hours later. The entire incident is described as a communication problem with language; among all those travelling companions, none could spoke the same langage and could have served as an interpreter on the plane and nipped the incident in the bud.
Things like that happen on a weekly basis... and since the one person who says they were in Muslim dress now admits that statement was “artistic license” and AirTran says they have manifests to prove he was not even on aircraft, how in the hell does this even begin to be Islamic terrorism?
No wonder Obama won if Conservatives are so easy to fool.
Now COME ON, Mindbender .... doesn't that just stretch your capacity for credulity a little bit??? It's okay ... you can admit it ... you'll still be respected in the morning.
You really seriously believe that a man apparently unable to speak English but traveling on a relatively small plane with at least a dozen companions, caused all this fuss-up because none of his companions could act as a translator on the spot?
I think (and admit if so) I erroneously clamed that AirTran and TSA confirm that the entire crew switched out and that some passengers refused to continue the flight. I KNOW FOR CERTAIN, however that I haven't read any denials of those points from AirTran or TSA. Do things like that happen on a weekly basis at major airports across the nation and if your answer is "yes," please tell me how you know this -- i.e., do you work in the industry, are you close to people in the airline industry, or have some inside knowledge of this? The reason I ask is because I've seen other FReepers who DO have experience in the airline industry point out that such an extreme event is uncommon indeed.
As I have said repeatedly, often in posts to you on different threads: I don't pretend to know what happened, but I sure as heck know what didn't happen. That plane didn't return the gate, lose its crew and many of its passengers, and leave two hours late because of a common, simple, miscommunication caused by lack of translators in a travelling group of more than a dozen people.
So far, out of all my requests for specifics from you on at least two different threads, you have NOT ONCE responded in substance, with links or reasonable explanations for such details as how there could be not one translator among a group of more than a dozen travelling companions. Instead, you've offered vague generalizations and expected them to suffice.
Somebody's easily fooled, allright. Got a mirror?
Why shouldn't they be allowed back on the plane. They were searched, they were clean, go fly to Houston.
Remember, the only person who says they were Arabic was not on the flight, and he has admitted that he lied about the fact they were wearing "Arabic clothes." He is the ONLY person who says they were Arabic and he was 22 minutes by air away from Atlanta on another inbound flight when it happened!
Whatever it was, it sure as hell wasn't Spanish. Furthermore, anyone remotely familiar with life in America could identify Spanish when they heard it, even if they coudln't understand it; it smells to me like AirTran and TSA had to look far and wide for ONE passenger they could quote as being in doubt; truly, you are gullible on this point for accepting the report as-is.
MOST significantly, any news reporter who accepts and then relays with nary a raised eyebrow claims that a) the woman "believed" it was Spanish and b) dosen't follow-up with the obvious quesiton, "How would someone who only speaks Spanish pose a translation language problem on a plane bound for Houston?" is one crappy news reporter.
And again, your response has failed to explain how the AJC article I linked above offers a credible explanation for such extreme actions taken by the pilot, the crew, and passengers, and only a very gullible person would accept "a simple problem in communications" at an INTERNATIONAL airport as a believable explanation. You apparently believe that out of at least a dozen travelling companions, not one could act as a translator for whatever language this non-English-speaking passenger understood.
It all fails the smell test. You are fixated on disproving folks that are irrelevant at this point, when you should be deeply troubled that such a clearly shaky official story is being passed as "good enough for who it's for" that results in just one more event of doing what the news media does best: creating illusions, this time the illusion that "there was nothing to see here, move along."
And since you mention it, conservatives are fooled all the time to Obama's advantage -- by the same news media that created the illusion that Obama (and Hillary, for that matter), had huge popularity among Americans. If he was so popular, why did ACORN have to gin up votes and engage in voter fraud? I'll tell you why: because if they hadn't, he'd have lost. Democrats have to cheat to win because the reality is that their candidates aren't popular. Vote fraud is what puts liberals in office -- media illusion that liberalism is loved by average Americans fools non-critically-thinking conservatives, and it is accessory to vote fraud's success.
Yes, conservatives WERE and ARE fooled -- by the very same MSM you purport isn't fooling them now by refusing to examine critically this clearly troubling event. And they are apparently again being an accessory to an illusion -- the illusion that this was "nothing, nothing at all." And conservatives LIKE YOU are fooled by it.
Hi, campfollower, thanks for finding and posting this. I came across the original article a while ago via internet search and posted it after a keyword search, but no title search (oops!).
Laura Armstrong did a great job in this. The simple fact that the head of http://www.chesleybrown.com/ was on board helps immensely.
I do hope that the information in this article added to what we already know makes this a story that can no longer be ignored by the OM.
The story is not just the specifics of what happened on Airtran flight 297, but MORE than that, the PATTERN of “passengers behaving badly” and probing, seeing the limits of what we’ll take. There are similarities, for example, to what Annie Jacobsen experienced on Northwest flight 327 in 2004. She also was ridiculed and not believed (what about the other passengers?), but was ultimately proven correct when DHS was forced to release their report in May 2007.
http://www.freerepublic.com/tag/flight327/index?tab=articles
http://www.theaviationnation.com/annie-jacobsen-biography-page/
https://www.theaviationnation.com/documents/OIG_Report_Flight_327.pdf
And, fwiw, SNOPES needs to update its assessment; it’s NOT false: http://www.snopes.com/politics/crime/skyterror.asp
On Friday, AirTran spokesman Christopher White, formerly with the TSA, was snide and rude when I called to inquire about the incident. He refused to answer questions and referred me to the above-mentioned website, which is not an official statement from AirTran but a public rebuking of a customer's circulating e-mail. Note to Chris: putting a customer's writing on your site making him a target for death threats and ridicule seems rather irresponsible for a major airline. I hope someone reviews your qualifications as spokesperson.Then, Saturday, AirTran went further, posting the assertion that the disputed e-mail writer from Texas, according to "legally binding" flight manifests, wasn't on the plane (just in case any of us believe the "urban legend" he supposedly made up out of thin air to get attention he isn't seeking,,, or something).
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