Washington – Officials ordered nine Muslim passengers, including three young children, off an AirTran flight headed to Orlando from Reagan National Airport yesterday afternoon after two other passengers overheard what they thought was a suspicious remark.
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Members of the party, all but one of them U.S.-born citizens who were headed to a religious retreat in Florida, were subsequently cleared for travel by FBI agents who characterized the incident as a misunderstanding, an airport official said. But the passengers said AirTran refused to rebook them, and they had to pay for seats on another carrier secured with help from the FBI.
Kashif Irfan, one of the removed passengers, said the incident began about 1 p.m. after his brother, Atif, and his brother’s wife wondered aloud about the safest place to sit on an airplane.
“My brother and his wife were discussing some aspect of airport security,” Irfan said. “The only thing my brother said was, ‘Wow, the jets are right next to my window.’ I think they were remarking about safety.”
Irfan said he and the others think they were profiled because of their appearance. He said five of the six adults in the party are of South Asian descent, and all six are traditionally Muslim in appearance, with the men wearing beards and the women in headscarves. Irfan, 34, is an anesthesiologist. His brother, 29, is a lawyer. Both live in Alexandria with their families, and both were born in Detroit. They were traveling with their wives, Kashif Irfan’s sister-in-law, a friend and Kashif Irfan’s three sons, ages 7, 4 and 2.
AirTran spokesman Tad Hutcheson agreed that the incident amounted to a misunderstanding. But he defended AirTran’s handling of the incident, which he said strictly followed federal rules. And he denied any wrongdoing on the airline’s part.
“At the end of the day, people got on and made comments they shouldn’t have made on the airplane, and other people heard them,” Hutcheson said. “Other people heard them, misconstrued them. It just so happened these people were of Muslim faith and appearance. It escalated, it got out of hand and everyone took precautions.”
Hutcheson confirmed that it was ultimately the pilot’s decision to postpone the flight. But he said the pilot was influenced not only by the complaints from passengers but by the actions of two federal air marshals on board, who had learned of the incident and reported it to airport police.
As a result of that report, federal officials made the decision to order all 104 passengers from the plane and re-screen them and their luggage before allowing the flight to take off for Orlando — two hours late and without the nine passengers.
Ellen Howe, a spokeswoman for the Transportation Security Administration, said the pilot acted appropriately.
“For us, it just highlights that security is everybody’s responsibility,” Howe said. “Someone heard something that was inappropriate, and then the airline decided to act on it. We certainly support [the pilot’s] call to do that.”
Howe added that the TSA’s involvement was limited to conducting a security sweep of the plane after the passengers were removed. Airport police officers’ only involvement was to hold the passengers in custody until the FBI arrived, said Tara Hamilton, a spokeswoman for the agency that runs the airport.
Hutcheson said AirTran is not likely to reimburse the passengers for the additional cost of their replacement tickets on USAirways. He said they were given a full refund for their AirTran fares and may fly on the carrier now that the investigation is complete.
The detained passengers said that is not likely.
“It was an ordeal,” said Abdur Razack Aziz, the family friend who was also detained. “Nothing came out of it. It was paranoid people. It was very sad.”
Better safe then sorry.
we all know why they do things like this.
my prediction:
the ACLU and CAIR will hire lawyers to sue the airline and the 2 passengers that reported on them
use your brains for one second. if they were really a muslim extremist security threat, you think they would have spoken in English? It was some noisy paranoid passengers behind them. Little hint. daven infront of some goyim at the airport and watch them freak out. ignorance is ignorance.
I’d guess they were looking for a lawsuit, just like the “flying imams” from several years ago. Dress up in traditional Muslim outfits, go to the airport, and start muttering darkly about security issues, attract some attention, get booted off the plane, then call your friendly local civil rights organization and let the good times roll.
That’s exactly what they should have done. I applaud them!
No one is paronoid. Just realistic.
The expression is that your sleep in the bed you make. That being said I dont feel bad for these people one ki hu zeh! Perhaps, if on 9/11 there was a very strong outcry and protest AGAINST the muslim terrorist hijacker murderers instead for FOR the murderers from this evil group of people, people’s reactions would be slightly different. Personally, if they made all the yishmaelim and their co-religionists walk all over the country, it would be ok with me.
its still more freedom than what anyone can enjoyin in a muslim contry
I hope the family will sue the airline for a lot of money.
It is very natural to ask which the safest place in an airplane is. If they had been terrorists intent on blowing up the plane, would there have been any safe seat on the plane? Clear, unadultorated discrimination.
I hope they were picked out bc of their looks. That would mean the US is finally coming to its senses and using racial profiling.
The worst problem here wasn’t that they were removed from the plane, it’s that after they got off, the FBI cleared them, and AirTran *still* wouldn’t let them fly. Even the FBI tried to help them get flights.
No, they were not looking for a lawsuit. They were looking for a vacation. They weren’t muttering darkly, they simply make the mistake of saying “what’s the safest seat”.
I agree with you all! Let’s continue to ban all people who look to be of suspicious heritage.
Since Israel is running up the biggest body count at the moment, we better get all the Jews off the planes. Lord knows they can’t wait to kill indiscriminately. Better safe than sorry you know.
Next up, folks you may suspect of being Christians and American. Get those sociopaths off my jet! With a body count of at least 100,000 men, women and children in Iraq, and still more in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and all those other funny named places, you know you are risking death boarding a plane with any of those types.
Oh wait! New Yorkers! Don’t let anyone from New York on either. Timothy McVeigh was born in New York, and we all know the terrible terrorist act he committed in 1995. He was Irish Catholic too. So better keep those terror loving bastard evil types on the ground as well. And don’t forget his partner, Terry Nichols from Michigan. No more lake-dwellers in the air. Think of the children!
This is going to be so great! I’m going to have the entire plane to myself. Once all the big, bad dangerous scary people are banned from my lily white pretty world. I had better say an extra prayer to Ramtha tonight and a few hosannas to the Spaghetti Monster too. Thy will be done. No more dirty, evil people. They all have it coming to them!
I’m so glad I’ve found a community of people that share my realistic world view. Lock everybody up, so that everybody can be safe. It really is the only way. I’m so afraid, so afraid, so afraid…
Jewish people have been thrown away from airplanes exactly for tha reason.
I know of 2 couples sent out from a florida trip……
The West don’t understand, when they are dressed traditionally they don’t attack. They shave & dress like seculars, although they don’t care about their children, so far there has never been a father & child on one of these missions.
In Eretz Yisroel, they could dress up as chareidim. They attack out of the blue when one least expects it.
the reason ppl are paranoid when it comes to muslims is because as they have proven themselves to be responsible for most terrorist attacks worldwide.
so let them not cry… .that they are being profiled or that we are being paranoid… a fact is a fact…. almost all terrorist attacks worldwide were done by islamic terrorists…so why shouldn’t people be scared of them.
let them act like people and then maybe they will be respected as people….
good job to the pilot and airline…. he did the right thing…
You are fools if you believe this abhorent behavior by the airlines was justifed ….in the 1930s, they started pulling yidden of the trains simply because they “looked like yidden”…..I suspect that to some unssophisticated Americans, one of your heilege rebbes “with a funny hat and long black robe” would look like a threat, especially if he got up on a flight and started davening because it was ‘zman minchah. Get real and lets start trying to educate people and not pander to their worst fears.
My family and I are Orthodox Mizrahi Jews, born in the US.
We wonder hoow much longer will Jews with Semitic features will be able to live in this country?
My sister has been strip searched every time she flies any airline.
My brother works for the US Govt and has a Pentagon badge but is searched and delayed until he misses his flight.
I took my family to a National Park, we were pulled over by Federal agents and told to empty the car, and were detained for 2 hours, standing on the road with our young children . We missed the park due to time constraints. I would like to take a trip to the Smithsonian, but when my sister went with her kids, she spent an hour and a half being searched before she could get into the museum. It ruined her trip.
My daughter went for her driver’s license and failed twice after two different testers yelled at her, one told her “this is America”. She scheduled aTHIRD appt within the same week, put on a straight blond wig and dressed in a knee length skirt and fitted blouse vs. the longer skirt and modest jacket she had worn the first two times and passed without even having to drive the whole course.
Another family member was pulled over exiting the Lincoln tunnel this week. He was detained for over 2 hours because he was told “he meets the profile of a terrorist”.
My other brother is regularly stopped in the NY subways, searched and detained for an hour or more on his way to work.
Whatever happens to Muslims in this country will also happen to Jews.
While I’m a strong believer in profiling, racial or otherwise, I think this should be very disturbing for us. Remember the story where a jewish guy was pulled off a plane for davening? Just as most people don’t understand the difference between the Sihks and Muslims (even though they hate each other and it’s a very obvious difference), many people outside of major jewish areas put us in the same boat.
I think profiling should happen on security lines but never to prevent a person from flying with an airline.
Nowadays in airports everyone is super-sensitive to any potential trouble. Be careful what you say, even to a friend or family member, even if joking. If you don’t obey what airline personnel are telling you, like ‘please sit down now’, you could be in big trouble. Try to think and plan ahead and daven before boarding. If you are going to daven on the plane, don’t stand when they tell you that you have to remain seated. And don’t be a wise guy with the flight attendants. Do what they say, and be polite. They have seen and heard plenty of things about passengers making all kinds of trouble. It will be a Kiddish Hashem for airline personnel to see that religious Jews are decent law-abiding people.
Getting Tough
There is no doubt that we as Jews may have a prejudgment to look at Muslims with a more stringent eye given there record and the way they educate their children. It is possible that this story is more then that. When an airline has a fear of possible attacks on their airline they want to do what they can to prevent this from happening again. This can also prove as a scare tactic for others especially Muslims who might feel the liberty to act in the wrong manner on the plane.
The example would be in a classroom if a child is doing something that could lead to misbehavior if it is dealt with right away no one will even thing of actually doing that. I have actually flown Air Tran and had a very good experience. In Fact they have a good system of upgrading you to Business class for a small fee. I just hope that no suspected terrorists make it there.
If they won’t want to fly with Air tran then i feel safer flying with them.
Two presumably armed Air Marshals couldn’t keep watch over one little family group and let the flight proceed proceed with its passengers???!!!! What are Air Marshals supposed to do, anyway, other than collect their pay and benefits?