Posted on 04/22/2008 7:00:16 AM PDT by VRWCmember
A globe-hopping executive was grounded by JetBlue after she threw a hissy fit at Kennedy Airport and triggered a bomb scare aboard a flight, the Daily News has learned.
Rosalinda Baez was arrested by the FBI for falsely claiming there was a bomb in her suitcase at JFK, according to a complaint filed last week in Brooklyn Federal Court.
Baez, who earns $190,000-a-year and has homes in Manhattan and Texas, was returning from a business trip in Costa Rica last Tuesday when she was blocked by a gate attendant from boarding JetBlue Flight 1061 to Austin, Tex., because the jetway had closed.
Her suitcase was already aboard the aircraft.
"What if I had a bomb in my bag?" the 44-year-old told the gate attendant, according to the federal complaint. "Well, I have a bomb in my bag, so are you guys going to turn the plane around cuz I need my bag."
Baez then raged that the Transportation Security Administration "does not know how to do their f------ job because if it did TSA would not catch it and let it go through," authorities said.
The flight took off anyway, but was forced to make an emergency landing in Richmond, Va., according to Assistant U.S. Attorney Jack Dennehy.
Three hundred passengers were yanked off the aircraft and screened, while bomb-sniffing dogs checked the commercial jet, authorities said.
Meanwhile, Baez waited several hours in a Wi-Fi computer lounge at Kennedy for another flight - until she was approached by JetBlue officials and federal agents.
Baez, a Web consultant to Dell Computers, said an FBI agent questioned her about "my love of this country."
"I was asked, have I ever had any thoughts of suicide or thoughts of doing damage to the United States," she said.
Baez adamantly denies claiming there was a bomb in her bag.
"The question [to the gate attendant] that got me into trouble was, 'Isn't it a security risk to let my bag travel without the passenger when there could be a bomb in the bag?'" Baez said.
She was arrested and then banned from flying aboard JetBlue until the criminal case is resolved. She is free on $200,000 bond.
"I've never been in any trouble in my life," she said. "Why would I say [there was a bomb]? It makes no sense. We have left the security of our country in the hands of people who are unqualified."
Guilty or Not Guilty
One thing that causes me to question the version of the story as related by "authorities" is that if she had really made the comments claiming there was a bomb in her luggage as reported in the story would she really have been allowed to wait several hours in a Wi-Fi computer lounge at the airport for another flight?
Smells like JetBlue butt-covering to me.
Maybe she meant to say “There’s an Obama in my bag!”
“We have left the security of our country in the hands of people who are unqualified.”
Guilty or not...she does have a point.
I going to go for "Idiot".
You do not say the word "bomb" in an airport. Duh!
They might have had somebody watching her the whole time.
If her name was achmed, hadn’t taken a bath in 6 mos., and said something about “death to the us” she’d get an apology and have 100 lawyers ready to sue for her.
Cuz?
I empathise with her, big time. Without audio recordings, her story will be hard to argue. I wouldn’t believe a thing a TSA agent said under oath.
Plus, even if she said what they say she said, a reasonable human being would understand it the way all of us here did.
Bottom line though, PMS is a bitch.
Nor do you greet your friend Jack at the airport by saying, "Hi".
“Guilty or Not Guilty”
Neither, just plain stupid.
I thought that bags not matched to passengers on the flight were automatically removed?
Not ever.
Guilty of being stupid...
argue = argue with.
Her story is a good “plausible denial”. And if it IS what she said, it was a valid point.
How do you figure that?
Do you perhaps have examples of similar occurrences?
Sounds like the gate agent Did Not Know Who She Was.
What is the difference between a plain fit and a “hissy” fit. Are their other kinds of fits? How about “wussy” fit or “gassy” fit.
Idiot is right.
Guilty? Probably not.
High maintenance? Absolutely!
If you love airport security and/or the TSA, please do be sure to thank a muslim.
Nah, probably just a bit “crampy”
JetBlue doesn't have anything bigger than an Airbus 320, which only holds 150 people. The MSM strikes again.
Traditional Latina temper tantrums and the TSA are a bad mix - maybe she should sue them for not respecting her cultural imperatives. ;)
Yes. She was not permitted to leave.
Maybe a pigeon for foreign corporate espionage’???
If she ever has kids, I would call CPS while she's in labor, as a preventive measure.
She doesn't have enough common sense to fill a red ant's arse.
She's a few beers short of a six-pack.
If you bag is on the plane and you are not, and you know that there is not a bomb on the plane, you wave bye-bye to the bag and catch up to it later. There is no hazard in letting the bag go, because you know there is no bomb in the bag.
Trying to get your bag back by discussing the possibilities of bombs in bags with a gate agent is just abusing the TSA rules for your own convenience. You are not preventing a hazard. You are just trying to get them to turn the plane around because you want your bag, and are speculating about things that make TSA types very nervous in order to do it.
She should just get over herself and catch up with the bag later. No big deal.
Even better, she should endeavor to get to the gate on time, and the whole problem could have been avoided.
Ok. She’s and idiot. I’ll say that up front.
BUT!! Prior to the plane taking off she said there was a bomb in her bag. Then, and I quote,
“The flight took off anyway, but was forced to make an emergency landing in Richmond, Va., according to Assistant U.S. Attorney Jack Dennehy.”
What if she wasn’t just being a bitch and was serious. How many would have died. I’ve done a lot of flying and I have to at least agree that the TSA’s job performance is lacking. I wouldn’t mind seeing someone busting some skulls in that orgainization starting at the top.
Obtuse. What she did was illegal, as in illegal immigrant and there is zero doubt that she broke the law.
Your reasonable human still does understand the concept of written law doesn't he?
No man is above the law and no man is below it: nor do we ask any man's permission when we ask him to obey it.
- Theodore Roosevelt
Judge Incorrigible has ruled. The verdict is High Maintenance.
It’s another name for tantrum. Hissy fits are a southern thing and may be called something else where you live.
Other names
Dummy spit (Australian)
Tanny spit (Irish)
Hissy fit
Tizzy
Tanty
Paddy (anti-Irish origin)
Temper Tantrum
Outburst Tirade
A petulant frenzy
Meltdown
Wobbler
Wobbly
Breakdown
Fanfare
Strop
Sulk
Hot with a touch of carelessness bordering on stupidity. A dangerous combination.
She said bomb.
Let’s not forget “pitched a fit.”
I’m inclined to believe that airline travel from this point on is not going to get better. It’s like any other huge system that was developed and later some new functionality was required, in this case security.
Our airports, airplanes, and passenger processing weren’t designed with security in mind and now we are making a hash of it.
I’ve flown 1 time since 9/11 and had to show up at 2AM for a 6AM flight at BWI. I was corralled standing outside the passenger terminal behind locked security gates with about 2000 other people for hours with no place to sit and no services, no coffee, no breakfast, no nothing.
Presumably its gotten better but I have’t been willing to give it a try.
>>It’s another name for tantrum. Hissy fits are a southern thing and may be called something else where you live.
Other names
Dummy spit (Australian)
Tanny spit (Irish)
Hissy fit
Tizzy
Tanty
Paddy (anti-Irish origin)
Temper Tantrum
Outburst Tirade
A petulant frenzy
Meltdown
Wobbler
Wobbly
Breakdown
Fanfare
Strop
Sulk
And one must not omit conniption which Bill Cosby once described as something “you don’t want to see - my wife’s head split open and fire came out of her brain and her eyes bulged out of their sockets.””
My point is that they have plenty of opportunity to do such things for real or at least for a more credible threat. This is someones overreaction and though she may have been very outwardly angry this was their way of solving the problem.
You are over reacting. The law, as it applies to crimes of verbiage, relies on how a reasonable human being would have interpretted the words at the time. Words are symbols. It is their intent that gives them power. Yelling “FIRE” in a crowded theater is illegal. If a commedian is in the middle of his routine in a theater and as part of his schtick yells “FIRE” he has not broken any laws because a reasonable human being would know that he was not actually trying to cause the stampede which the law was attempted to thwart.
Same here. If what the TSA claims she said was true, any reasonable hearer of her words would clearly understand that there was NO BOMB, but she just wanted on the plane. That is sleazy and I hate when people at the airport have a “Do you know who I am?!” attitude, but if I was on the jury on this one, I’d find her not guilty, becuase of the obvious intent of the words.
If she was claiming a bomb to cause panic or get money or divert a plane, that would be different. As a living, breathing human being who has to deal with TSA on a weekly basis myself, I understand her frustration. She crossed a line, but just barely. She should suffer consequences, but nothing too harsh.
And the TSA IS a joke. A friend caught three of them in the “basement” of Sea-Tac airport rifling through a passengers suitcase looking for valuables. Don’t get me started.
I literally see them as lower than burger flippers.
Literally.
...who earned $190,000-a-year and haD homes in Manhattan and Texas, now Leavenworth,.... There, fixed it.....
Six figure income, executive, sorta bi-coastal...(East/Gulf?), not unattractive if she'd behave...Yeah, that's my take, too. A self-important yuppie on a hissy fit cuz sne didn't get her way.
Your post absolutely matches my position on this.
I think where I differ with a lot of people here is not about whether what she did was wrong. I think we all believe it is. It is the apparent loss of civility from our culture - on both sides of such issues. I think there should be consequences to her, just as there are to me when I get caught speeding. But as with my speeding ticket, she should pay those consequences and be able to get on with life.
And like with my ticket, if I get too many I have demonstrated a pattern and lose my license. Likewise with her, if she demonstrates a pattern, she should lose her right to fly.
Spolied little bitch desreves jail.
Yes, that’s a good one too. I LOVE that Bill Cosby special!
Yep, that one too.
I’ve only flown once since 9-11, and that was from Memphis to Houston and back to Memphis. I found the TSA agents to be polite and friendly.
But the judge will.
lets see the no-no for freedoms of speech
“fire” in a crowded theater
“OOPS!” in the operating room when a patient is on the table and opened.
“bomb” when at the airport surrounded by security. (or any mention of drugs etc.)
LOL.
Reminds me of other things you don't want to hear in the operating room as the surgeon has finished stitching you up; "Has anyone seen my watch?"
you are assuming the TSA agent will have an english translator in the courtroom....
(puts on fire proof suit)
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