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.
He was dressed like that to look like a poor soul from Sudan...it was just another ploy to help him on this plane.
Time to outlaw this sadistic cult, end all immigration, level all mosques, and hang all politicians who insist we don't. Islam is a filthy disgusting cult that must be expelled from this country. This incident is just another example of Islams murderous and sadistic nature
Would not surprise me that there were two or more jihadis on the plane willing to die. If the attack was foiled they could debrief their al Queda masters on what went wrong.The next attack would have the benefit of their real time intel. If the attack succeeeded they’d meet the virgins. If I was running DHS, CIA, FBI I’d follow up on every person on that plane, including the crew.
GG World of Justice: Our military ought to replicate the attempted bomb, only doing it right this time. The bomb should be strapped to the dude's gut and detonated. No trial is needed, we can just call it passenger assistance.
LOL! IMO, you’re watching too much CSI.
What kind of person would volunteer to take a passive role in the event....knowing the only value people have on you is what you can relate happened if the bomb fails.
....unless the kidnapped his wife and kids and threatened to kill them.
LOL! I watch Criminal Minds!
How did he get a visa without a passport?
“Unnamed airline administratpr lets the perp board without a passport.”
We don’t know that. This story (if true) says he tried to get on without one. The story doesn’t say whether in the end he gave them his passport in order to get on.
what can be done about this stupid double standard...that W got attacked for the same things that 0 gets a pass???
y’all are offering ideas...here is a very important area to address.
yeah...the MSM is ever shrinking, but what additional ideas do y’all have?
“How did he get a visa without a passport?”
Exactly
I am sure all these involved perps were Pakis and not Indian.
Remember Mumbai!
I would love to see the complete passenger list.
“He was dressed like that to look like a poor soul from Sudan...it was just another ploy to help him on this plane.”
Yes, I understand that
I fly international several times a year on Delta. They have always checked for passports at least twice before boarding to the US and sometimes 3 times. I think what was going on here was the lack of a B-2 visa stamp for the passport and not the passport itself.
http://travel.state.gov/visa/temp/types/types_1265.html
You’d have a better chance at convincing the Feds that Detroit should be nuked than expelling all the radical muslims in this country.
Would not surprise me that there were two or more jihadis on the plane willing to die. If the attack was foiled they could debrief their al Queda masters on what went wrong.The next attack would have the benefit of their real time intel. If the attack succeeeded they’d meet the virgins. If I was running DHS, CIA, FBI I’d follow up on every person on that plane, including the crew.
&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&
B I N G O! We have a winner.
I said this the first time I heard this rerportedon the news...
My first comment being WHY wait until you have damn near landed to blow up material, close to the ground and fire engines, foam, ambulances etc.
Why didn’t he pull this off over the ocean...less life saving resources? With more people asleep?
Why not detonate the device in the bathroom?
I think several things:
this cat has a message to relay to “someone” here in the USA. I think we have a spy somewhere in Detroit maybe in the hospital, where a message will be relayed from this terrorist to someone here in Detroit area. Maybe a CAIR representative will get the message and relay.
This guy was CHOSEN to do this for a reason. They tried to break the trail from Yemen to Europe with the “no passport” claim, however it has failed.
OR, did others board that flight with no so called passport?
This guy was NOT suppose to die...we know that by the chain of events. The timing at the last 10 minutes was a diversion and a reminder that “al quida” can smuggle explosives onto a plane.
THEY proved it!
There have to be OTHERS who were on that flight watching the chain of events. How well they got through security. If security APPEARS lax. If there appears to be new sniffing techniques looking for explosives...etc
This was a trial run and I fear we have just begun to see the beginning of more attacks.
who is to say he doesn’t have 5 or 6 different aliases?
Mybe he came in as Bob the Brit and left as Craig the Paki?
who is to say he doesn’t have 5 or 6 aliases? getting around and when times get tough starts the “I don’t have a passport” game.
Sort of like another black muslim I know with his birth certificate?
Now, now...don't be skeptical of what you read online!
;-)
One possible answer (from a commentator this morning on Fox) was that they wanted it to crash and kill persons on the ground (a manned unguided missile) to make it an attack on the homeland.
Why not detonate the device in the bathroom?
I believe the feds are thinking about that. Again from Fox, they are reporting that all passengers are to remain seated during the last hour of flight with no access to overhead bins or restrooms and nothing on their laps.
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