Well that's a faint denial. If Petruna's account was a total crock, AirTran would have said so. This sounds like AirTran is hiding behind inaccuracies in detail to avoid having to acknowledge the validity of the underlying substance of Petruna's account. That there would be discrepancies in accounts among eyewitnesses is to be expected. This statement from AirTran makes me very much less inclined to give weight to the nothing-there side of this equation.
Annie Jacobsen was on Northwest Flight 327 on June 29, 2004 -- her account is "Terror in the Skies -- Again?:
As we sat waiting for the plane to finish boarding, we noticed another large group of Middle Eastern men boarding. The first man wore a dark suit and sunglasses. He sat in first class in seat 1A, the seat second-closet to the cockpit door. The other seven men walked into the coach cabin.As "aware" Americans, my husband and I exchanged glances, and then continued to get comfortable. I noticed some of the other passengers paying attention to the situation as well. As boarding continued, we watched as, one by one, most of the Middle Eastern men made eye contact with each other. They continued to look at each other and nod, as if they were all in agreement about something. I could tell that my husband was beginning to feel "anxious."
The take-off was uneventful. But once we were in the air and the seatbelt sign was turned off, the unusual activity began. The man in the yellow T-shirt got out of his seat and went to the lavatory at the front of coach -- taking his full McDonald's bag with him. When he came out of the lavatory he still had the McDonald's bag, but it was now almost empty. He walked down the aisle to the back of the plane, still holding the bag. When he passed two of the men sitting mid-cabin, he gave a thumbs-up sign. When he returned to his seat, he no longer had the McDonald's bag.
Then another man from the group stood up and took something from his carry-on in the overhead bin. It was about a foot long and was rolled in cloth. He headed toward the back of the cabin with the object. Five minutes later, several more of the Middle Eastern men began using the forward lavatory consecutively. In the back, several of the men stood up and used the back lavatory consecutively as well.
For the next hour, the men congregated in groups of two and three at the back of the plane for varying periods of time. Meanwhile, in the first class cabin, just a foot or so from the cockpit door, the man with the dark suit – still wearing sunglasses – was also standing. Not one of the flight crew members suggested that any of these men take their seats.
When she got home, she was unable to find info... she was mocked and told she was a bigot. The air marshal on the flight said she'd "overreacted".
A month later, on July 30, 2004, a second passenger corroborated Jacobsen's account:
Government officials are questioning a passenger's account of alarming and suspicious behavior by Syrian musicians aboard a recent flight to Los Angeles, although a second passenger has corroborated the events.The second passenger, a frequent business traveler who asked not to be identified, provided a copy of her itinerary confirming she was on the June 29 Northwest Airlines Detroit-to-Los Angeles Flight 327, which was disrupted by 14 Syrian passengers later identified as musicians.
The passenger, who was riding in first class, said the constant foot traffic and strange behavior she witnessed in the front cabin frightened her as much as it did Annie Jacobsen, the first passenger who publicly reported the incident.
"I thought I was going to die," the second passenger told The Washington Times. "And that makes me furious because that's the whole point of terrorism, to make people afraid. It makes me mad that they achieved that. But I'm not letting it stop me from taking other trips."
For YEARS she was ridiculed, but didn't back down (again, right person for that time and place). That account persists at Snopes to this day.
Despite the years of media and public pressure, when the report for the Department of Homeland Security was finally released, it showed she was spot on.
It would seem that the only reason we have a new view of what happened on Flight 327 is due to Ms. Jacobsen's tenacity and the ability to get the word out in the alternative media.
Documentation of how Northwest flight 327 facts dribbled out over time despite official denials is preserved on FR: http://www.freerepublic.com/tag/flight327/index
I thank God for FR and its archives.