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I salute that flight crew. There was no need to lie, it would have been perfectly OK to say, "we've been asked by Center to divert to xxx airport, the plane is perfectly safe". I've encountered too many phony "mechanicals" when the airline didn't feel they'd sold enough seats, which is why I really got steamed by the original post.

The crew had no way of knowing whether they might have had a terrorist on board, who could have benefitted from information. Slim chance, but with four planes down (and rumors of more, as I heard that day), where's the upside in taking a chance? In circumstances like this, in international airspace, with the aircraft possibly in danger, the crew has a lot of fast thinking to do. They are not interested in your whining about your "rights." The captain is in charge, and his word is law. Get over it.

TO all those who complained about the Captain of Delta 15 "lying" to the passengers:
The Captain may have been informed by Delta that OTHER planes might be subject to hijacking, with the hijackers not acting yet. The BEST POSSIBLE way of dealing with that is a) get the plane on the ground, and b) suggest to the potential hijackers that there was a mechanical problem with the plane, so it might not be usable to destroy a target.
Under these precise circumstances, it was the duty of the pilot to lie to the passengers in exactly this way. Maybe the poster who was on a flight to Houston whose pilot "told the truth" was on a different airline which had not given the pilot a warning about additional possible hijackings.
The pair of "Middle-Eastern" men who got off a grounded plane in St. Louis and then took a train to San Antonio, where they were arrested with substantial money in cash and box cutters, suggests that more than four planes may have been targeted.
Think it thought before you post.

Congressman Billybob

I've encountered too many phony "mechanicals" when the airline didn't feel they'd sold enough seats, which is why I really got steamed by the original post.

Eff off, Fud. The captain made a perfectly sensible decision.

America's Fifth Column ... watch PBS documentary JIHAD! In America -- here

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