The SCMP are running their own version of this story, with an interesting modification:
"A group of 13 flight attendants say they were illegally fired by United Airlines after refusing to fly on a Hong Kong-bound plane last July that had a “threatening” message scrawled under its tail engine, according to a complaint filed with the US Department of Labor.
In the complaint, filed Tuesday, they said the words “Bye Bye” and two faces, one smiling and the other “devilish”, were found finger-drawn in oil grime under the auxiliary engine of the Boeing 747-400 plane at San Francisco International Airport."
