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August 20, 2006
Northwest Flight 327 Revisited
Most of us read about it back in 2004, Annie Jacobson's fearful flight from Detroit to Los Angeles with a pack of middle eastern men who behaved suspiciously and terrorized not only the passengers, but also the flight attendants and the pilot:
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 Annie's husband talked to the flight attendant... "the flight attendant pulled him into the galley. In a quiet voice she explained that they were all concerned about what was going on. The captain was aware. The flight attendants were passing notes to each other. She said that there were people on board 'higher up than you and me watching the men.'"
About 20 minutes later the same flight attendant returned. Leaning over and whispering, she asked my husband to write a description of the yellow-shirted man sitting across from us. She explained it would look too suspicious if she wrote the information. She asked my husband to slip the note to her when he was done.
After seeing 14 Middle Eastern men board separately (six together, eight individually) and then act as a group, watching their unusual glances, observing their bizarre bathroom activities, watching them congregate in small groups, knowing that the flight attendants and the pilots were seriously concerned, and now knowing that federal air marshals were on board, I was officially terrified.
I would have felt the same way, in fact, I was terrified just reading it, even knowing that the plane landed safely. But, before the plane landed...
Suddenly, seven of the men stood up -- in unison -- and walked to the front and back lavatories. One by one, they went into the two lavatories, each spending about four minutes inside. Right in front of us, two men stood up against the emergency exit door, waiting for the lavatory to become available. The men spoke in Arabic among themselves and to the man in the yellow shirt sitting nearby. One of the men took his camera into the lavatory. Another took his cell phone. Again, no one approached the men. Not one of the flight attendants asked them to sit down. I watched as the man in the yellow shirt, still in his seat, reached inside his shirt and pulled out a small red book. He read a few pages, then put the book back inside his shirt. He pulled the book out again, read a page or two more, and put it back. He continued to do this several more times.
In the end, nothing happened:
The last man came out of the bathroom, and as he passed the man in the yellow shirt he ran his forefinger across his neck and mouthed the word "No."
The plane landed.
Federal Marshals swarmed the plane, passengers and crew were questioned. The rest of the world scoffed. Northwest denied there was an incident. The victims became the accused, Annie Jacobson was considered a hysterical, paranoid racist. But not anymore. Homeland Security paid Annie a visit...
"... while one arm of the government (the Federal Air Marshal Service) has vehemently maintained all along that "nothing happened on flight 327," the other, more muscular arm (the Department of Homeland Security) has been conducting a rather large investigation about it."
It turns out the traveling "musicians" on their way to a gig had nothing with them to make music with. Two months prior, there was a credible warning issued about terrorists traveling under "P class visas (sports and culture), and that's just what these men had, except, their visas were expired. Despite the fact that they were from Syria, which is a terrorist nation, no one looked close enough to discover that their visas were expired, and only two of the fourteen were questioned pre-flight, that breaks all of the rules. Despite the presence of Federal Marshals all over the airport when the plane landed, the men were allowed to leave without being searched or questioned. These men had been flying back and forth across the country several times using one-way tickets, for which they paid cash.
The agents who sat with me all morning going over the events of flight 327 seemed sincerely committed to getting to the bottom of what happened on that flight. It seemed obvious that they believe something happened. Was it a probe? A dry run? A training exercise or an intelligence gathering mission? My sense is that the jury's still out on a hard and fast answer. But flight 327 was far from a situation involving 13 hapless Syrian musicians and a case of bad behavior.
Read the whole thing now, and the next time you feel like complaining about airport security and carrying your lipstick, read it again.
And to all of you who scoffed for whatever reason... hmph.
Posted by LindaSoG at August 20, 2006 08:46 AM
Comments
Fantastic update Linda! Thank you for finding out about this.
Posted by: Wild Thing at August 20, 2006 11:32 AM
Awsome Linda, I feel that there are a lot more dry run's that we haven't heard about. Thank you for sharing this.
Posted by: Jack at August 20, 2006 11:46 AM
Thanks for posting this. A local talk radio station, Tom Sullivan KFBK Sacramento, reported on this incident right after it happened. It was obviously a dry run for something like the big terrorist bust out of the UK. It seems we are doing some things right.
Posted by: Mark at August 20, 2006 01:50 PM
people find it easier to scoff than deal with the reality of what we're facing
Posted by: sultan knish at August 21, 2006 10:48 AM