Posted on 12/26/2009 11:55:38 AM PST by American Dream 246
A Michigan man who was aboard Northwest Airlines Flight 253 says he witnessed Umar Farouk Abdul Mutallab trying to board the plane in Amsterdam without a passport, and believes at least one other person from the flight was arrested on Friday at Detroit Metro Airport.
Kurt Haskell of Newport, Mich., who posted an earlier comment about his experience, talked exclusively with MLive.com and confirmed he was on the flight by sending a picture of his boarding pass. He and his wife, Lori, were returning from a safari in Uganda when they boarded the NWA flight on Friday.
Kurt HaskellLori and Kurt HaskellHaskell said he and his wife were sitting on the ground near their boarding gate in Amsterdam, which is when they saw Mutallab approach the gate with an unidentified man.
While Mutallab was poorly dressed, his friend was dressed in an expensive suit, Haskell said. He says the suited man asked ticket agents whether Mutallab could board without a passport. “The guy said, 'He's from Sudan and we do this all the time.'”
Mutallab is Nigerian. Haskell believes the man may have been trying to garner sympathy for Mutallab's lack of documents by portraying him as a Sudanese refugee.
The ticket agent referred Mutallab and his companion to her manager down the hall, and Haskell didn't see Mutallab again until after he tried to detonate an explosive on the plane.
Haskell said the flight was mostly unremarkable. That was until he heard a flight attendant say she smelled smoke, just after the pilot announced the plane would land in Detroit in 10 minutes. Haskell got out of his seat to view the brewing commotion.
“I stood up and walked a couple feet ahead to get a closer look, and that's when I saw the flames,” said Haskell, who sat about seven rows behind Mutallab. “It started to spread pretty quickly. It went up the wall, all the way to ceiling.”
Haskell, who described Mutallab as a diminutive man who looks like a teenager, said about 30 seconds passed between the first mention of smoke and when Mutallab was subdued by fellow passengers.
“He didn't fight back at all. This wasn't a big skirmish,” Haskell said. “A couple guys jumped on him and hauled him away.”
The ordeal has Haskell and his wife a little shaken. Flight attendants were screaming during the fire and the pilot sounded notably nervous when bringing the plane in for a landing, he said.
“Immediately, the pilot came on and said two words: emergency landing,” Haskell said. “And that was it. The plane sped up instead of slowing down. You could tell he floored it.”
As Mutallab was being led out of the plane in handcuffs, Haskell said he realized that was the same man he saw trying to board the plane in Amsterdam.
Passengers had to wait about 20 minutes before they were allowed to exit the plane. Haskell said he and other passengers waited about six hours to be interviewed by the FBI.
About an hour after landing, Haskell said bomb-sniffing dogs detected something in a fellow passenger's bag at Detroit Metro Airport. He says the FBI told passengers to move to another area of the airport following the incident. “They said, 'It's not a safe area. Read into that what you want.' I interpreted it to mean that there's a bomb in his carry-on.”
Though Haskell says he saw that man led away in handcuffs, he has yet to see anything discussed publicly about a second arrest – even though he believes it may somehow be connected to Mutallab's foiled terror attack. “I know what I saw.”
A call to the FBI on Saturday afternoon has not yet been returned.
Not only does the airline have to fly the passenger back at their expense, we get a huge fine just for letting him/her board and get as far as the landing country. I work at a medium sized airport in the midwest and deal daily with international passengers. We NEVER even issue a boarding pass without the passport and applicable visa. Sounds to me like there was a lack of visa nad a bribe involved.
Real refugees get passports with a refugee status denoted in them. I’ve seen a number of Sudanese ones.
He may have been referred to a manager, but no one is saying they saw him speak to a manager. He was (according to this story) sent down the hall. Who knows if he went there? He supposedly had a US visa, so he could have just decided to use his passport & visa and skip the sob story.
I don't know how they work things in Amsterdam, as I never flew into that airport, but I have worked plenty of international as well as domestic flights. Occasionally in the US, we would have INS deliver a passenger to the gate. I won't go into all the details of the procedure, but this happened all the time with illegal immigrants who had been arrested and were being sent back to country of origin. They certainly don't have passports with them. Did you think they bussed them over the border? Nope. They flew them commercial and the airline charged the government an arm a leg for that seat. Of course, this is leaving, not entering the country.
I have also had a Chinese businessman escorted to the plane by one of these VIP escorts who was very well dressed, but with a badge. I'd be curious to know if this "Indian" man (I agree, probably Pakistani), had a legitimate airline or airport badge on. This Chinese man was traveling through - I think it was Honolulu, but he could have been going through the West coast from Canada - and did not have a visa to stay in the US. So he was with a VIP escort. Again, I won't go into detail about what happens with the passenger's documentation, but it does happen that they get escorted to the aircraft door like this guy was describing.
It sounds like there was either an insider on this job, or they obviously had a pretty good feel for how it all worked.
quote: “He may have been referred to a manager, but no one is saying they saw him speak to a manager. He was (according to this story) sent down the hall. Who knows if he went there? He supposedly had a US visa, so he could have just decided to use his passport & visa and skip the sob story.”
Or the two guys knew they could get on the plane because of “the manager”. An inside connection could also see to it that the bomb makes it on the plane. So I’d take a look at that manager, since terrorist incidents usually involve accomplices.
Thanks for the information. I was pretty sure there had to be methods already in place for them.
That being the case, the manager who allowed this DEFINITELY needs to be fired, if they haven’t been already...
That’s the FIRST question I’d be asking if I were with the airline — WHO allowed this man to get his boarding pass in the first place?
If this was the terrorists’ plan in order to get this guy on the plane then it has to have happened more than once, or else they have an “inside” person at that airport/airline. All just my speculation, but I’d be looking for more participants in this plot. I would love to find out about the second passenger who was apparently arrested as well — the well-dressed one with him at the ticket counter...
Wow. I have always suspected that there is a whole lot more terror going on than the government wants to admit. I believe even the Kenyan communist Ubama was alarmed when he finally got the inside skinny upon taking office. Not because he gives a crap about America, but because a successfull attack would hurt his image.
If the terrorist is the only thing on fire it might come in handy to fan the flames. ;^)
the flight remained in canadian airspace well into descent... did not cross into US until about 12,000 ft (going by lat/lon and track info):
http://flightaware.com/live/flight/NWA253/history/20091225/0754Z/EHAM/KDTW/tracklog
this scum was watching the little map tracker on the back of the seat in front of him until he knew he was over US soil.
Something needs to change! Why the f don't we rise up!!! They're letting obvious muzzies through, but white grannies are being detained.
That's why all passengers are held on the plane. The FBI wants to find out if anyone else onboard is complicit in the plot.
The stupid federal employees are only thinking that old ladies will be easier to frisk than young men who might object. It’s about that simple.
That’s how it works.
so the terrorist lived in a $6 million apt. there's goes the whole "poverty breeds terrorism" theory (AGAIN) #islam #sharia #jihad
More than “likely” now.
There are some fricking dumb newspeople out there.
I wonder who identified him first. The feds or his father when he saw the photo.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.