View Full Version : Northwest Flight Diverted After 3 Men Locked in Lav
Airbubba
11th Sep 2002, 16:40
Hopefully, yet another false alarm...
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Plane Diverted After Suspicions
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 12:19 p.m. ET
FORT SMITH, Ark. (AP) -- A Northwest Airlines jet was diverted to Fort Smith's airport Wednesday after three passengers locked themselves in a bathroom, officials said. The other passengers departed from the plane safely.
Flight 979, an Airbus A320 traveling from Memphis, Tenn., to Las Vegas, landed at Fort Smith late Wednesday morning, Northwest spokeswoman Mary Beth Schubert said.
Police and firefighters surrounded the aircraft. No one was reported hurt.
The state emergency management agency said some sort of negotiations were held between officials and the three passengers in one of the plane's bathrooms.
"Passengers were taken off and they are negotiating through the bathroom,'' said Jennifer Gordon, a spokeswoman for the agency.
The FBI was interrogating the three men, the Transportation Security Agency said.
It wasn't clear who reported suspicions to the airline.
The TSA said the three men had been acting strangely on the plane, but gave no specifics beyond saying the three locked themselves in a bathroom.
No other air traffic in the area was affected, Steigman said.
The Bush administration had raised the nation's terror alert warning to its second highest level Tuesday -- code orange -- signaling a "high risk'' of attack with the anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks at hand.
frantzy
11th Sep 2002, 17:15
Light on details but good news... follow up from AP News
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FORT SMITH, Ark. -- Federal officials said Wednesday's diversion of a passenger flight to Fort Smith's airport was not related to terrorism.
The airline also said that it was four -- not three -- passengers who were being detained.
The airline said members of the flight crew became concerned about the passengers' behavior and were unable to resolve the situation in the air.
Northwest Airlines said the pilots decided to land at Fort Smith's municipal airport as a precaution.
The airline had 94 passengers and five crew. The plane landed safely and no one was reported hurt.
The airport was closed for 30 minutes, and the military says no fighter jets were scrambled to escort the Airbus A-320.
The flight was bound for Las Vegas from Memphis, Tenn
Airbubba
11th Sep 2002, 18:41
If these guys claim they were enroute to a fudgepacker's convention and loudly shout homophobia, they pretty much become a protected species in the U.S. Not that there's anything wrong with that as Seinfeld would say...
Wasn't there a similar incident months ago with two guys in the lav on a transatlantic flight? As I recall, the alleged perps copped a walk.
AtlPax
11th Sep 2002, 18:48
Sheesh - I have a hard enough time maneuvering just myself and my beer gut in those small lavs . . . :confused:
747FOCAL
11th Sep 2002, 19:21
Yah Airbubba they did and those guys admitted to smoking crack in there too.:mad:
Airbubba
11th Sep 2002, 19:49
From an updated AP article:
"...Television station KSTP in Minneapolis, where Northwest Airlines is based, quoted an unnamed source as saying the men were "shaving themselves clean." A source speaking on condition of anonymity told The Associated Press that people aboard the airplane gave early-arriving investigators similar accounts.
After last year's terror attacks, documents taken from the luggage of attack leader Mohamed Atta gave what appeared to be instructions for the suicide hijackers: "The previous night, shave the extra hair from the body (and) pray."
The plane's pilots opted themselves to land at Fort Smith rather than continue the flight..."
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Hmmm, wonder if they will claim they thought they were going on the LAS Hajj?
Airbubba
12th Sep 2002, 19:55
>>Infidels!
I think they could more accurately be called detainees. They are facing up to 20 years for interfering with a flight crew. The initial hearing is this afternoon.
Airbubba
13th Sep 2002, 05:09
The latest, looks like they were Sikhs, not Muslims, the guys with a lot of turban time...
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Two passengers on diverted jet face charges
September 12, 2002 Posted: 7:43 PM EDT (2343 GMT)
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Federal prosecutors filed charges Thursday against two airline passengers a day after they got into a dispute with flight attendants over the use of an airliner washroom.
The dispute prompted the pilot of a Memphis-to-Las Vegas flight to cut the flight short and land at Fort Smith, Arkansas, amid the heightened tension of the September 11 anniversary Wednesday.
Gurdeep Singh Wander and Harinder Pal Singh were scheduled to appear in federal court in Fort Smith late Thursday.
The a criminal complaint charges them with interference with flight crew members and attendants on Northwest Airlines Flight 979. If found guilty, they could be sentenced to up to 20 years in prison.
The dispute erupted when Wander locked himself in the washroom for what a flight attendant thought was an unusually long time, then repeatedly refused to leave, according to the complaint.
After he finally came out, Singh insisted he had to use the same washroom used by Wander, the complaint said.
That was enough to raise the suspicions of flight attendant Deborah Summers.
Summers told the FBI that in her training she learned than an explosive device might be assembled from components separate individuals might be able to carry through airport screening points, the complaint said.
She also said she was intimidated by the men.
According to the complaint, at one point while he was in the washroom as the flight attendant tried to get him to come out, Wander opened the door, revealing he had taken his shirt off and was shaving.
The complaint -- which makes no suggestion that the men intended harm to the plane or its passengers -- said Singh and Wander were on the final leg of what had become a two-day journey from New York through Minneapolis and Memphis to Las Vegas.
Because the incident occurred amid heightened alert on the anniversary of last year's terrorist hijackings, the decision to divert the Airbus A-320 with 94 passengers and five crew members attracted wide public attention.