Not.
By BILL MONTGOMERY
Atlanta Journal-Constitution Staff Writer
Those were no terrorists taking pictures of small aircraft at Fulton County's Charlie Brown Field Thursday evening, just a trio of airline workers from New Zealand on a busman's holiday.
Fulton County police had put out an alert for two men in a tan PT Cruiser with Canadian license plates seen by employees at Raytheon Aircraft Services, who told police the men fled when they were approached.
"It turns out they saw this report on the TV news last night, and said, 'Wait a minute, that might be us,' " said Lt. Darryl Halbert of the Fulton County Police Department. The three men -- Wayne Grant, Michael Bruce Davison, and Mark Ijsselldijk -- approached a Clayton County sheriff's deputy working an extra job at a Riverdale motel and told him police might be looking for them, said Fulton police Detective S.K. Brown.
The men were interviewed by detectives and the FBI Friday night; "after satisfying law enforcement authorities, they were released," Halbert said.
The FBI referred all comment Saturday afternoon on the incident to the Fulton police.
"They said they travel all over the world taking pictures of airplanes," Halbert said. "Our detectives asked them why did they take off, and they said nobody approached them."
"They said they saw some guy and waved at him, but that's all, they didn't think anything of it."
Halbert did not know the name of their employers nor where in New Zealand they were from. "They are all employees of the airline industry in New Zealand and they travel around the world photographing airplanes," Halbert said.
The three were on their way to Charlotte, Brown said.
"Because they work for the airlines, they get free flights and fly all over the world and take pictures of airplanes," Brown said. "That's just what they do."
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