Sunday, October 08, 2006
Men Escorted Off My Flight
Today’s post was going to be about my work in Baltimore with the Mid Atlantic Arts Foundation, but happenings in Chicago trump that post.
I flew from Baltimore to Chicago in an incredibly un-eventful flight this evening as my wee video attests to.
I arrived in Chicago and went to the service desk to see if I could get an upgrade. I was upgraded to first class between Chicago and Denver. We got on board United flight 959 and everything looked great. The plane was loaded a full 20 minutes early, which for a Chicago flight is astonishing.
Well, the luck didn’t last.
Suddenly three passengers were being escorted off the flight by security. That turned into six.
One of the flight attendants shared with us that several men has been acting strangely, passing cell phones and iPods back and forth and then claiming that they didn’t know each other. Worse, one man they were looking for was not in his seat and couldn’t be found. Apparently they had come from an Arabic airliner, or so the rumour went.
One of the flight attendants looked particularly distressed—she was the one that saw the men acting oddly.
Then two more men were taken off and the captain told us everything had been attended to and the bags of these seven had been taken off the plane. The cabin started clapping. At least until the door was opened again at which point an eighth man was taken off. We were told something about some of their names perhaps being on a watch list.
We pushed away from the gate two hours late and many people were awfully grumpy.
Moral of the story—don’t share your phone and iPod with a stranger!
While it would have been nice if these men hadn't gotten as far as getting on the plane, I'm glad that United took the time they did to ensure everything was safe and secure. I do hope that, as the captain said, "it is probably just a big misunderstanding" but better safe than sorry.
Anyhow, I have posted a shortish video of the goings on that I took with my Treo and edited in iMovie. Sorry for the bad video and audio, but it was taken with a cell phone for pete sakes!
digg this
I flew from Baltimore to Chicago in an incredibly un-eventful flight this evening as my wee video attests to.
I arrived in Chicago and went to the service desk to see if I could get an upgrade. I was upgraded to first class between Chicago and Denver. We got on board United flight 959 and everything looked great. The plane was loaded a full 20 minutes early, which for a Chicago flight is astonishing.
Well, the luck didn’t last.
Suddenly three passengers were being escorted off the flight by security. That turned into six.
One of the flight attendants shared with us that several men has been acting strangely, passing cell phones and iPods back and forth and then claiming that they didn’t know each other. Worse, one man they were looking for was not in his seat and couldn’t be found. Apparently they had come from an Arabic airliner, or so the rumour went.
One of the flight attendants looked particularly distressed—she was the one that saw the men acting oddly.
Then two more men were taken off and the captain told us everything had been attended to and the bags of these seven had been taken off the plane. The cabin started clapping. At least until the door was opened again at which point an eighth man was taken off. We were told something about some of their names perhaps being on a watch list.
We pushed away from the gate two hours late and many people were awfully grumpy.
Moral of the story—don’t share your phone and iPod with a stranger!
While it would have been nice if these men hadn't gotten as far as getting on the plane, I'm glad that United took the time they did to ensure everything was safe and secure. I do hope that, as the captain said, "it is probably just a big misunderstanding" but better safe than sorry.
Anyhow, I have posted a shortish video of the goings on that I took with my Treo and edited in iMovie. Sorry for the bad video and audio, but it was taken with a cell phone for pete sakes!
digg this
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The passengers applauded, you're annoyed they weren't stopped before they got on the plane.
I take it everybody presumed they were guilty? Were they in fact guilty? Or were they innocent people pulled off a plane? I see no news stories. If they were innocent, I doubt they think "better safe than sorry" especially if they were pulled off just because of their race.
I take it everybody presumed they were guilty? Were they in fact guilty? Or were they innocent people pulled off a plane? I see no news stories. If they were innocent, I doubt they think "better safe than sorry" especially if they were pulled off just because of their race.
# posted by 
: 1:54 PM
: 1:54 PM
Hi Brad. I wasn't annoyed--I didn't write anything to that effect.
I was concerned about what was going on. Presumably security screening should have figured out something was amiss. However, it didn't. It was a stewardess that noticed suspicious behaviour going on between the men who apparently claimed they did not know each other. They were passing electronic equipment between one another.
I REALLY hope they weren't pulled off just because of race. I would find that distasteful in the extreme.
At the end of the day, I'm just telling what I saw.
I was concerned about what was going on. Presumably security screening should have figured out something was amiss. However, it didn't. It was a stewardess that noticed suspicious behaviour going on between the men who apparently claimed they did not know each other. They were passing electronic equipment between one another.
I REALLY hope they weren't pulled off just because of race. I would find that distasteful in the extreme.
At the end of the day, I'm just telling what I saw.
Interesting incident, an example of how these portable cameras can catch scenes that share an experience with a wider audience. Thanks for putting this up!
Thanks for your feedback Len. I was glad that I had my cell phone close by to take shots of the scene. My cabin mates seemed pretty interested in what I was doing. I explained that I would be posting the edited footage late Saturday night.
It could have been worse, they might have been Canadians :-) Nice video, Matthew.
# posted by : 6:56 PM
: 6:56 PM
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