Posted on 12/08/2005 12:21:37 PM PST by Rennes Templar
A passenger on Flight 924 gives his account of the shooting and says Rigoberto Alpizar never claimed to have a bomb
By SIOBHAN MORRISSEY/MIAMI
At least one passenger aboard American Airlines Flight 924 maintains the federal air marshals were a little too quick on the draw when they shot and killed Rigoberto Alpizar as he frantically attempted to run off the airplane shortly before take-off.
"I don't think they needed to use deadly force with the guy," says John McAlhany, a 44-year-old construction worker from Sebastian, Fla. "He was getting off the plane." McAlhany also maintains that Alpizar never mentioned having a bomb.
"I never heard the word 'bomb' on the plane," McAlhany told TIME in a telephone interview. "I never heard the word bomb until the FBI asked me did you hear the word bomb. That is ridiculous." Even the authorities didn't come out and say bomb, McAlhany says. "They asked, 'Did you hear anything about the b-word?'" he says. "That's what they called it."
When the incident began McAlhany was in seat 24C, in the middle of the plane. "[Alpizar] was in the back," McAlhany says, "a few seats from the back bathroom. He sat down." Then, McAlhany says, "I heard an argument with his wife. He was saying 'I have to get off the plane.' She said, 'Calm down.'"
Alpizar took off running down the aisle, with his wife close behind him. "She was running behind him saying, 'He's sick. He's sick. He's ill. He's got a disorder," McAlhany recalls. "I don't know if she said bipolar disorder [as one witness has alleged]. She was trying to explain to the marshals that he was ill. He just wanted to get off the plane."
McAlhany described Alpizar as carrying a big backpack and wearing a fanny pack in front. He says it would have been impossible for Alpizar to lie flat on the floor of the plane, as marshals ordered him to do, with the fanny pack on. "You can't get on the ground with a fanny pack," he says. "You have to move it to the side."
By the time Alpizar made it to the front of the airplane, the crew had ordered the rest of the passengers to get down between the seats. "I didn't see him get shot," he says. "They kept telling me to get down. I heard about five shots."
McAlhany says he tried to see what was happening just in case he needed to take evasive action. "I wanted to make sure if anything was coming toward me and they were killing passengers I would have a chance to break somebody's neck," he says. "I was looking through the seats because I wanted to see what was coming.
"I was on the phone with my brother. Somebody came down the aisle and put a shotgun to the back of my head and said put your hands on the seat in front of you. I got my cell phone karate chopped out of my hand. Then I realized it was an official."
In the ensuing events, many of the passengers began crying in fear, he recalls. "They were pointing the guns directly at us instead of pointing them to the ground," he says "One little girl was crying. There was a lady crying all the way to the hotel."
McAlhany said he saw Alpizar before the flight and is absolutely stunned by what unfolded on the airplane. He says he saw Alpizar eating a sandwich in the boarding area before getting on the plane. He looked normal at that time, McAlhany says. He thinks the whole thing was a mistake: "I don't believe he should be dead right now."
IDIOT!! You have Federal Marshals with guns aimed at you and they order you to lay flat - then you become as one with the floor/ground.
Somebody came down the aisle and put a shotgun to the back of my head and said put your hands on the seat in front of you. I got my cell phone karate chopped out of my hand
Obviously he didn't put the phone down in a timely way.
Yikes, why can't reporters ask follow up questions like "but you said yesterday that..."? Oh wait, I just answered my own question.
Agreed. And why was he told to lie down in the first place? Because he was already running down the aisle and making a commotion.
The silly part is anyone speculating on how to save this guy. He was caught and maybe had to change plans. The LEA did a great job as usual.
A new way to commit suicide: make threats while on an airplane.
Isn't this a Peter Seller's routine?
....check out post 219! Quite possible and I would even bet on it, except will never know!!!
And, according to the passengers on TV *LIVE* yesterday, saying he had a bomb.
But he ran FROM the plane; should they just have said, "he's gone," and gone back to their seats?
Well, every one on TV yesterday said that -- and it was in the first network news reports.
So you believe that a terrorist that wanted to detonate a bomb in the jetway would wait until he was already seated on the plane and then make a huge commotion and start running up the aisle?
You really believe that it's reasonable to expect a guy that was just in the jetway minutes ago and could have detonated it there to bypass that opportunity and act like a lunatic?
I am not saying he was yelling he had a bomb. I have no idea what he may or may not have been yelling.
I can safely say that if I am sitting there reading a magazine wondering if I will be able to sneak back to the head before the plane taxis out, and all of a sudden there is a commotion, and someone is yelling SOMETHING, clutching a bag to their chest, and running up the aisle towards the cockpit, there is a distinct possibility that I might not be able to hear exactly what he is saying, and it might sound like gibberish to me, especially if the person is yelling something like "Ahh....I...gotta...get to...the...door..." all the while swinging his head from side to side, etc.
Who is speculating on how to save him?
Just because the McAlhany didn't hear it, (He's a ?Constuction Worker maybe he has bad hearing) doesn't mean Alpizar didn't say it.
Now where did I say that?
You're the one who said that he DEFINITELY WOULD detonate it at his seat if he had one.
As if you knew.
In this case - I feel badly for the officers who had to shoot him.
I think it's just as reasonable as your suggestions, if that's what they are.
You seem upset because people don't agree with you. And I'm not the first one on this thread to notice it.
If a guy went to enough trouble to get a bomb on a plane, he is not going to start running up and down the aisles making himself a target to the air marshals.
citation? Passengers interviewed by CNN do not report hearing a bomb threat (see video link in article). So far the only claims that I've seen that there was a bomb threat comes from the Air Marshals spokesman. Perhaps after Federal investigators get through interviewing passengers, ("You did hear him say "bomb," didn't you; everybody else did?") the Feds will be able to come up with some "independent" collaboration.
It makes as much sense as anything else!
When I read something silly I'm going to point it out.
He was on Fox this morning and started spewing alot of 'eyewitness' stiff, finally Mike Jarrod asked him how sitting in 24C he was able to see so clearly everything going on in the first class area and he sort of faltered at that point.
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