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Pastimes : Clown-Free Zone... sorry, no clowns allowed -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: redfish who wrote (291845)	7/27/2004 2:01:20 PM
From: Night Trader	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 436258

urbanlegends.about.com Origins: The "Terror in the Skies, Again?" article written by Annie Jacobsen and published on WomensWallStreet.com, in which she details her experience with passengers (whom she viewed as terrorists) on a 29 June 2004 flight from Detroit to Los Angeles, caused quite a stir, to say the least. That article contained a good deal of supposition, and a follow-up article, identified as an "Opinion Piece," didn't offer much to validate author's assumptions. As things turned out, although the events Ms. Jacobsen claims to have witnessed on her flight did occur (more or less), her interpretation of them (that they involved a group of terrrorists making a dry run for building a bomb in-flight) was erroneous. The men she observed on her flight were exactly what authorities told her they were: a group of Syrian musicians who had been hired to play at the Sycuan Casino & Resort near San Diego. Like any other group of passengers, the men in musical ensemble talked to each other, moved around, ate food, and used the restrooms while the flight was in progress. According to federal air marshals, Ms. Jacobsen "overreacted": Undercover federal air marshals on board a June 29 Northwest airlines flight from Detroit to LAX identified themselves after a passenger, "overreacted," to a group of middle-eastern men on board, federal officials and sources have told KFI NEWS. The passenger, later identified as Annie Jacobsen, was in danger of panicking other passengers and creating a larger problem on the plane, according to a source close to the secretive federal protective service. "The lady was overreacting," said the source. "A flight attendant was told to tell the passenger to calm down; that there were air marshals on the plane." The middle eastern men were identified by federal agents as a group of touring musicians travelling to a concert date at a casino, said Air Marshals spokesman Dave Adams. Jacobsen wrote she became alarmed when the men made frequent trips to the lavatory, repeatedly opened and closed the overhead luggage compartments, and appeared to be signaling each other. "Initially it was brought to [the air marshals] attention by a passenger," Adams said, adding the agents had been watching the men and chose to stay undercover. Jacobsen and her husband had a number of conversations with the flight attendants and gestured towards the men several times, the source said. "In concert with the flight crew, the decision was made to keep [the men] under surveillance since no terrorist or criminal acts were being perpetrated aboard the aircraft; they didn’t interfere with the flight crew," Adams said. The air marshals did, however, check the bathrooms after the middle-eastern men had spent time inside, Adams said. FBI agents met the plane when it landed in Los Angeles and the men were questioned, and Los Angeles field office spokeswoman Cathy Viray said it's significant the alarm on the flight came from a passenger. "We have to take all calls seriously, but the passenger was worried, not the flight crew or the federal air marshals," she said. "The complaint did not stem from the flight crew." Federal agents later verified the musicians’ story. 'We followed up with the casino," Adams said. A supervisor verified they were playing a concert. A second federal law enforcement source said the concert itself was monitored by an agent. "We also went to the hotel, determined they had checked into the hotel," Adams said. Each of the men were checked through a series of databases and watch-lists with negative results, he said. The source said the air marshals on the flight were partially concerned Jacobsen’s actions could have been an effort by terrorists or attackers to create a disturbance on the plane to force the agents to identify themselves. Air marshals' only tactical advantage on a flight is their anonymity, the source said, and Jacobsen could have put the entire flight in danger. "They have to be very cognizant of their surroundings," spokesman Adams confirmed, "to make sure it isn't a ruse to try and pull them out of their cover."