Posted on 08/02/2004 11:38:13 PM PDT by Lonely Bull
A Virgin Atlantic Airways flight bound for London from San Francisco International Airport was canceled Monday night after suspicious behavior by several passengers was reported to authorities.
Virgin's Flight 20, scheduled to leave at 4:30 p.m., was barred from departing "based on suspicious activity by some passengers,'' said Nico Melendez, a spokesman for the federal Transportation Security Administration. The FBI later took charge of the case, according to a San Francisco police spokesman.
(Excerpt) Read more at sfgate.com ...
This information is years old. Besides, you have to admit the timing is suspicious.
"The first involved an unruly passenger who was drunk and who caused a disturbance. About 15 minutes after that passenger was removed, passengers said, the flight crew called five passengers holding Romanian passports to the front of the jet, according to passengers.
"They were five passengers they didn't like,'' said Jamie Schutmaat of Sacramento. "They were acting weird.''
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Come on, they were just 5 Romanian musicians. ;)
(I sooner believe 5 Romanian musicians, than 14 Syrian ones)
More Syrian 'musicians'?
Were these playing the French horn?
Or the suicide vest?
AS of 11pm PDT this plane is stil on the ground. The passengers have been removed, the luggage is being kept and inspencted, certain numbers of people have been detained and are "persons of interest"...according to the local NBC news
Good catch.
Just another political ploy by Bush
My guess is the "unruly passenger" was a ruse to keep the plane on the ground a few extra minutes to check out the suspicious characters.
YOu may be right.
And this is why they were suspicious of the 5 passengers with Romanian passports:
Al-Qaeda Made Its Way to Romania
Politics: 30 March 2004, Tuesday.
People who have links to the terror network Al-Qaeda have traveled to Romania heading from Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan.
The news was broken by the Director of the Romanian Special Services Radu Rimofte, who refused to reveal the terrorists nationality.
Some of them have been expelled at the beginning of the year.
http://www.novinite.com/view_news.php?id=32808
And we also read that Al Qaeda was trying to use/recruit non-Arab looking terrorists.
They don't need a ruse. They can say anything or nothing. I just don't think that they have to employ that kind of charade when they can simply cite "a slight equipment malfunction".
Most of the other flights (like the one with the Japanese fellow) have been rescheduled or merely delayed.
This one got canceled altogether. I find it difficult to believe that things were "blown out of porportion", since there seemed to be enough provocation for them to cancel the flight.
This is all I had:
*** Unconfirmed ***
Just heard on the top of the hour (0200 Lima) ABC radio or local KSFO (not sure which), that a Virgin airline flight from SFO was cancelled because of suspicious passenger behavior.
Five people with Romanian passports were called to the front of the plane before the flight was cancelled. One is being detained, no charges/arrests at this time.
Virgin is putting remaining passengers up at local hotels.
Story missing at 0300.
Nothing to see here, move along...
I find it hard to think this was "blown up out of proportion" when the flight crew called the guys up and wouldn't fly with them, I have never seen that done. I know they can but it sure isn't common. I have seen drunk passengers removed but never saw a flight crew bar a suspicious group.
http://www.sanluisobispo.com/mld/sanluisobispo/news/politics/9307089.htm
Nothing about the ethnicity of the people holding the Romanian passports in this report or their status after being taken into custody. Wanna bet they are members of the muslim death cult who acquired some fraudulent passports and visas?
The drunk guy was a ruse to draw out the air marshalls for the "Romanians."
It makes a difference for on-time performance reporting. Equipment and maintenance problems are the fault of the airline, but unruly passengers probably don't count.
Flight number VS 020 Departure date 02 Aug 2004 Route San Francisco (SFO) to London (LHR) Scheduled departure time 02 Aug 16:30 Estimated departure time 03 Aug 14:30 Scheduled arrival time 03 Aug 10:30 Estimated arrival time 04 Aug 08:35
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