If China bombed our country, planted bases throughout the states, and then decided what our government should look like in the future, the Chinese would have to worry about our own newborn "terrorists" and "fanatics."
The only reason I chose China as the agressor is because it makes more of a point (Iraq vs US) than if I had used a country like...say...Iceland. I wanted a more realistic comparison to visualize.
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.
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.”
According to the article, five of the six adults in the party were of South Asian descent, and the men all wore beards while the women wore traditional headscarves. Kashif Irfan is an anesthesiologist and his brother, Atif, is a lawyer. Both were born in Detroit and currently live in Alexandria, Va. They said they suspected they were profiled because of their appearance, which AirTran disputed.
“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,” [AirTran spokesman Tad] 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.”
I realize that many people in this country want airlines to target Muslims for additional security screening, which, even if you agree with that idea, this seems a bit excessive. I’m not sure this approaches the level of impropriety of, say, someone joking that he had a bomb in their bag at the ticket counter.
More importantly, if you don’t agree with targeting travelers based on race, think about why. If a white person made a similar comment, it is very unlikely that anyone would even take notice. And that’s the point: If it was inappropriate for a Muslim, then it would also be inappropriate if someone like, say, myself said the same thing.
At the very least, the airline could have rebooked them on another flight after they were cleared.
On Friday afternoon, AirTran Airways issued a public apology to the nine passengers removed from Flight 175 on New Year’s Day, as well as others on the flight who were inconvenienced. The airline acknowledged that the incident was a misunderstanding and offered to compensate the passengers.
Kashif Irfan, one of eight family members who were detained along with a family friend, told The Lede that the family was weighing the airline’s offer, but had not yet made a decision whether to accept it.
The full statement from AirTran:
Our goal at AirTran Airways is to offer a safe, pleasant and positive travel experience for all customers every day on every flight. We sincerely regret that the passengers on flight 175 did not have a positive travel experience on January 1, 2009.
Security is a shared responsibility and this incident highlights the multiple layers of security that are in place in today’s aviation environment. While ultimately this issue proved to be a misunderstanding, the steps taken were necessary.
Alert passengers reported to the flight crew what they believed were inappropriate comments allegedly made by one of the passengers onboard, and the flight crew notified the federal air marshals that were assigned to the flight. The federal air marshals onboard contacted local and federal law enforcement officials who came to the gate and escorted the individuals in question off the aircraft to ensure they posed no threat to the flight. After deplaning the remaining passengers and performing a sweep of the aircraft and rescreening all passengers, crew, checked and carry-on baggage, the flight departed two hours late without the nine passengers who were detained for questioning.
We regret that the issue escalated to the heightened security level it did on New Year’s Day, but we trust everyone understands that the security and the safety of our passengers is paramount and cannot be compromised.
We apologize to all of the passengers — to the nine who had to undergo extensive interviews from the authorities and to the 95 who ultimately made the flight. Nobody on Flight 175 reached their destination on time on New Year’s Day, and we regret it.
The airline has refunded the air fares of the nine passengers detained for questioning, has agreed to reimburse the passengers for expenses incurred by taking another airline and has also offered to transport the passengers home to Washington, D.C., free of charge.
Original post:
The question seemed harmless, a nervous habit that Atif Irfan always had when flying.
Mr. Irfan turned to his wife, Sobia Ijaz, as they boarded AirTran Flight 175 at Reagan National Airport near Washington Thursday afternoon, and wondered aloud where the safest place to sit on the airplane would be — the front? The rear? Over the wing?
But passengers sitting behind them evidently overheard the remark, saw Mr. Irfan’s beard and his wife’s head scarf, and grew concerned. Mr. Irfan and his wife, along with six members of their extended family, are Muslims, and were on their way to a religious conference in Orlando when they boarded the flight.
The worried passengers contacted flight attendants, who contacted Transportation Security Administration officials, and soon, Mr. Irfan and his wife were off the plane and being questioned in the jetway. The six remaining family members in the traveling party were taken off the plane as well, along with a family friend who happened to be on the same flight and who happens to be a lawyer for the Library of Congress.
Next, the nine Muslim passengers — all but one are United States-born American citizens — were taken to a quarantine area in the passenger lounge where they were questioned by F.B.I. agents. Mr. Irfan’s three small nephews were denied access to food in the family’s carry-on luggage.
Before long, Mr. Irfan told The Lede in an interview Friday morning, the F.B.I. concluded that the incident was obviously just a misunderstanding, and told AirTran officials that the family was cleared to travel. But he said AirTran still refused to rebook them, offering only to refund their tickets. The F.B.I. agents helped the family get on a later USAirways flight to Orlando, but those seats cost them twice as much.
“To be honest, as a Muslim, we do understand how to deal with this, we realize this is an unfortunate aspect in our lives,” he said by telephone from Orlando. “Whenever we get on a plane, because of the color of our skin, people tend to look at us with a wary eye anyway. Of course it was very embarrassing.”
The most embarrassing part of all, [said] Mr. Irfan, came when AirTran told everyone on the the airplane to disembark, so officials could sweep the plane; the passengers all walked directly past Mr. Irfan’s family in the terminal.
AirTran defended its handling of the situation. In a revised statement issued on Friday, the company says that when it denied the family rebooking, it had not yet been told they were cleared to travel:
At departure time, the Captain of flight 175 informed the airline that there were two federal air marshals onboard who contacted local and federal Washington law enforcement officials for a security related issue onboard the aircraft involving verbal comments made by a passenger and overheard by other passengers. The airline then advised the Transportation Security Administration (T.S.A.). It was determined that all 104 passengers onboard must deplane and passengers, crew, baggage and the aircraft should be re-screened. After the re-screening of the passengers, crew, bags and the aircraft, 95 passengers were allowed to reboard the aircraft and nine were detained for interrogation by the local law enforcement officials, the F.B.I. and the T.S.A. Flight 175 departed nearly two hours late and arrived safely at its destination.
Later in the day, six of the nine detained passengers approached the customer service counter and asked to be rebooked to Orlando. At the time, the airline had not been notified by the authorities that the passengers were cleared to fly and would not rebook them until receiving said clearance. One passenger in the party became irate and made inappropriate comments. The local law enforcement officials came over and escorted the passengers away from the gate podium.
AirTran Airways complied with all T.S.A., law enforcement and Homeland Security directives and had no discretion in the matter. The nine passengers involved were all offered full refunds and may fly with AirTran Airways again after having been released from questioning from and cleared by the law enforcement officials.
The family, naturally, doesn’t see it that way. They have already been in touch with the Council on American-Islamic Relations [ http://www.cair.com/ ], an advocacy group. Ibrahim Hooper, director of communications for the council, said the organization is working with AirTran to resolve the matter in an amicable way.
“This was handled badly by AirTran — they were quite belligerent in the beginning,” Mr. Hooper told The Lede in a telephone interview. “But as they saw the facts come out, they have become more conciliatory.”
An AirTran spokesman, Tad Hutcheson, told The Washington Post that the airline’s better-safe-than-sorry approach was appropriate and minimized the ethnic-profiling aspect of the story:
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. 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.
But Mr. Irfan said that at no time did he or his wife utter the word “bomb” or any other word that could be taken as suspicious. He said the two passengers who seemed to be taking note of his conversation with his wife were teenage girls.
Mr. Irfan said Friday morning that the family was waiting to see whether AirTran will do anything more to resolve the matter. “We’re not looking for some big payout,” he said. “We just want something that would put us back where we started.” [ The airline later made an offer; see the update above. ]
News 
Market Data 
Discover 
