Cover-up boosts fears of Bush air security flaws

[newswolf56]

By Annie Jacobsen
WomensWallStreet

Think back to last summer, July 25, 2005: United Airlines flight 934, traveling from Los Angeles to London, was diverted to Boston. You may recall (ever so vaguely) hearing about it. The first news reports spoke of three Pakistani male passengers "acting suspiciously" but then, very quickly, the FBI stepped in and changed that tune. "The movement around the cabin caused someone to divert the plane," FBI spokeswoman Gail Marcinkiewicz told the Associated Press. The FBI's message was loud and clear: someone on United 934 over-reacted and the diversion was a nonevent. "Some of the men were in first class and another was in coach, and they were walking between the two sections," Marcinkiewicz added. She might as well have said, "Someone cried wolf." But, as has been the case previously, the FBI wasn't forthcoming with information. This plane was not diverted simply because men moved between cabins.

Diverting a plane -- especially for a terror threat -- is not like making a pit stop along the highway. It means getting permission from the FAA to change course, involving the Department of Homeland Security and the Department of Justice, rallying a squad of local police to meet the plane, dumping thousands of gallons of plane fuel and processing passengers (in this case 244) through customs before you put them up for the night. It's a multi-pronged effort that costs tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of dollars.

And United Airlines does not divert its planes at whim. Last summer, on United Airlines flight 925 from London to Washington, DC, nine male Pakistani passengers were acting suspiciously, and two of them turned up on the "no-fly" list. But that flight did not divert, despite the captain's desire to do so. (To learn more about that incident, go here read my earlier piece.)

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http://www.womenswallstreet.com/columns/column.aspx?aid=991

[MADem]

1. Amazing--the bit about finally taking the concerns of the flight crew

seriously boggles my mind--I mean, who ELSE are you gonna trust to do that sort of stuff, and who else could communicate their concerns to the ground? Faith based passengers using the Jesus line?

Doesn't make me feel safer, but it is a good article.

[nadinbrzezinski]

2. Praise the Lord!

amen pass the faith based phone

;-)

[11cents]

3. Not this nut again

Annie Jacobsen is the woman who insisted that a troupe of Syrian musicians were probable terrorists doing a "dry run" -- remember? She wrote up this hyper-melodramatic account of her oh-so-frightening flight that turned out to be totally a product of her imagination run amok. The "Ask the Pilot" guy on Salon, among others, debunked it thoroughly.