View Full Version : AA109 returns to LHR
jerrystinger
7th Aug 2006, 13:18
AA109 LHR-BOS departed this morning (10:53BST), but is scheduled back into LHR at 15:10 as AA109R. Anyone know more?
flyerire
7th Aug 2006, 13:38
Think you have incorrect information. According to "flytecomm", it is due to arrive in Boston at 12:49 and is currently enroute on schedule.
flyerire.
Globaliser
7th Aug 2006, 14:48
www.aa.com says "FLIGHT STATUS - CANCELLED".
diesel862
7th Aug 2006, 15:11
Flt AA109 recently landed 09R, whilst 27R/L in use at LHR - and flight now
showing as cancelled.
HEATHROW DIRECTOR
7th Aug 2006, 15:12
I hear that it returned with a "mechanical problem".
Skipness One Echo
7th Aug 2006, 15:15
Think you have incorrect information. According to "flytecomm", it is due to arrive in Boston at 12:49 and is currently enroute on schedule.
flyerire.
' cos that website is never wrong..........:mad:
diesel862
7th Aug 2006, 15:24
It returned due to a mechanical problem and the flight is now cancelled.
It will either ferry empty or go with pax tomorrow if the problem is fixed.
Most of the pax have already been booked on other flights tonight.
Cahlibahn
7th Aug 2006, 16:12
Sky news are reporting that it returned due to a 'security incident'.
Airline Tycoon
7th Aug 2006, 16:12
SKY NEWS
"AA109 returned due to an onboard security incident"
DUB-GREG
7th Aug 2006, 16:55
Excuse my ignorance when i ask what type of a/c this is your talking about?
Thanks
EIDW
lexxity
7th Aug 2006, 17:29
BBC reporting 4 pax being spoken to.
Link. (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/london/5253930.stm)
HEATHROW DIRECTOR
7th Aug 2006, 17:53
Thinks: So why did it need to land opposite direction?
Mad (Flt) Scientist
7th Aug 2006, 18:17
Thinks: So why did it need to land opposite direction?
At a guess, following the incident a few months ago (?) when an aircraft with a problem was routed over central London, they used 09R because it approaches from the West i.e. over suburbia.
Middle Seat
7th Aug 2006, 19:07
From AP:
LONDON - A London-to-Boston flight was called back to Heathrow Airport on Monday after U.S. authorities discovered a passenger's name was on their "no-fly" list, officials said. Four passengers were being questioned by border control officers.
American Airlines Flight 109, a Boeing 777, left London at 10:55 a.m. (5:55 a.m. EDT) headed for Boston, said Tim Wagner, a spokesman for the Fort Worth, Texas-based airline.
"The flight returned to Heathrow due to a security issue that needed to be resolved in London," he said. "It was not a security threat to the aircraft. The flight was in no danger."
Wagner provided no other details.
Phil Orlandella, a spokesman for the Massachusetts Port Authority, which runs Boston's Logan Airport, said staff were told at a meeting Monday morning that the name of a passenger on the flight matched one on the no-fly list. He had no further information.
"Out of an abundance of caution, Homeland Security determined the flight would not be allowed to land in Boston," a U.S. Homeland Security Department official said in Washington, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the situation.
He said no unusual activity was reported aboard the plane.
The man, traveling with three women identified as his mother and two sisters, was taken into custody for questioning by British and U.S. authorities, the Homeland Security official said.
The official, who did not know the suspect passenger's age or nationality, said the three women traveling with him were not taken into custody.
But London's Metropolitan Police said port and border control officials were questioning four passengers removed from the flight. Police did not specify who they were.
The U.S. Transportation Security Administration's "no-fly" list was established after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks to prevent people who may have terrorist ties from boarding commercial flights.
faheel
7th Aug 2006, 21:57
As if any "terrorist" would travel under his right name to the US sheesh !
I recently had to apply for a US visa and one of the questions was (amongst a bunch of other inane ones) was "do you intend to engage in terrorist activities" !!
Yeah right and the answer to that would be yes????
I know they are paranoid re 911 and rightly so, but do they honestly think that anyone right minded or not would answer yes to that question?
How much money has homeland security cost AA for that little episode.
Airline Tycoon
7th Aug 2006, 22:36
Thinks: So why did it need to land opposite direction?
Just a precaution Bren, so it didn't fly over central London.
I thought US authorities got the pax list hours before take-off & I assume they use computers to compare names, so why the delay in ident?
Must have an advanced copy of MS Vista!
... or Cat Stevens aka Yusuf Ali trying to sneak back in with a News of the World 'sheikh' in tow!
HEATHROW DIRECTOR
8th Aug 2006, 08:05
Tnx Airline Tycoon...
So if there really is a security concern .....
Why are the US authorities unhappy to accept this flight into Boston or into any remote Air Force base in the US but are quite happy to send it back to overfly populated areas at its origin ?
Overflown of Slough
fyrefli
8th Aug 2006, 08:35
So if there really is a security concern .....
Why are the US authorities unhappy to accept this flight into Boston or into any remote Air Force base in the US but are quite happy to send it back to overfly populated areas at its origin ?
I think you may have just answered your own question in the previous paragraph :)
Overflown of Slough
LOL!
Rich.
Lon More
8th Aug 2006, 08:57
To quote Betjeman "Come friendly bombs and land on Slough" :cool:
To quote Betjeman "Come friendly bombs and land on Slough" :cool:
I was waiting for that ...... :)
Coconutty
8th Aug 2006, 10:14
faheel :
As if any "terrorist" would travel under his right name to the US sheesh !
Who said the passenger was travelling under his real name :confused:
More "assumptions" and knocks at the Security services who are, after all, only trying to protect us :ooh:
Is there not just a remote possibility, that the security services might have figured that some "terrorists" will not use their real names? - and that they also have a list of known aliases on their "No-Fly" list :confused:
Without KNOWING the facts, how can the services be criticised for their actions ? - Do you really think they would have allowed the 777 to lift KNOWING someone was on board on the list ? I don't. So "assuming" they didn't know until after the flight commenced - what options were there ?
Allow the flight to continue to destination with someone on board that they suspect shouldn't be on board ?
Divert elsewhere ( WHERE ) ?
Return to point of departure - Where it is feasible to "assume" that there may be easier access to any information concerning the individual - to help resolve the matter one way or the other ?
http://i34.photobucket.com/albums/d129/coconut11/Coconutty.jpg
They could have diverted to Prestwick, as other flights have been required to do in the recent past.
But maybe that would have put the "terrorist" suspects rather too close to the C130s transiting through EGPK
derekl
8th Aug 2006, 15:21
I recently had to apply for a US visa and one of the questions was (amongst a bunch of other inane ones) was "do you intend to engage in terrorist activities" !!
Yeah right and the answer to that would be yes????
It's not quite as silly as it looks at first. They ask you a bunch of apparently dumb questions because, if you're found to have replied incorrectly to any of them, they don't have to prove anything else.
Dushan
8th Aug 2006, 17:12
I recently had to apply for a US visa and one of the questions was (amongst a bunch of other inane ones) was "do you intend to engage in terrorist activities" !!
Yeah right and the answer to that would be yes????
Nobody expects you to answer "yes". The reason for this question is that in case you do "engage in terrorist activities" or are suspected of it, you can easily be arrested and held because you lied on you application.
Globaliser
8th Aug 2006, 19:06
If there's one cheerful silver lining in the cloud of security over-reaction, it's that this demonstrates that US airlines are also prone to this sort of event. It's not a vendetta against UK (or other non-US) airlines.
All airlines carry multi-national pax. I suppose El-Al could even carry the odd palestinian.
I await to see if the AA pax questioned were US citizens.
fescalised portion
9th Aug 2006, 16:24
They were GB passport holders.
SaturnV
9th Aug 2006, 21:24
The passenger of interest was a Kurd.
Times:
A FLIGHT to the United States was ordered to turn back over the Atlantic by American security agents because a Kurdish passenger was named on a no-fly list, US officials said yesterday.
After the American Airlines flight touched down at Heathrow, the man, his mother and his two sisters were questioned by Special Branch officers then released without charge.
Yesterday, as American Airlines completed arrangements for the other 236 passengers to reach the United States, police said that the man was not wanted in Britain and of “no interest” to counterterrorist officers.
overstress
9th Aug 2006, 21:49
... can be read: here (http://www-cdr.stanford.edu/intuition/Slough.html)