Mutiny on Flight 613

[TragicMonkey]

Right....sue the airline, when in fact the airline wasn't at fault.

Well, the airline did deny two passengers their flight, which they had already paid for. The men weren't suspicious--they already passed the airline and airport security, and were allowed to board. The other passengers, who are NOT granted the power to determine who flies and who doesn't, for some reason were given their way by the airline. What's with that? Next time I fly, can I get up a movement among the passengers to vote off the crying babies, and have the airline bow to our wishes? I thought disrupting a flight was grounds for being denied service, not an acceptable method to deny service to other passengers. The airline's fault is that it crumbled to pressure from a gang of disruptive passengers who themselves should have removed from the flight.

 

[Darat]

Right....sue the airline, when in fact the airline wasn't at fault.

The airline prevented two legitimate passengers from flying. The proper course of action would have been for the airline to remove the passengers causing the disruption and not allow them to fly (and obviously they would get no compensation).

I would like to think if I was on the flight I would have kicked up a fuss about the other passengers and once back in the UK I'd have made myself available to all media to put forward a different side i.e. that the flight was full of racist, bigoted fools!

I do wonder how many of the passengers then got a taxi at the airport that was driven by an "Asian/Arabic/not one of us" looking driver?

 

[gumboot]

The airline prevented two legitimate passengers from flying. The proper course of action would have been for the airline to remove the passengers causing the disruption and not allow them to fly (and obviously they would get no compensation).

I read it that the police removed the two suspect passengers. Surely in this case the passengers should be sueing the police, right?

-Andrew

 

[Darat]

I read it that the police removed the two suspect passengers. Surely in this case the passengers should be sueing the police, right?

-Andrew

Don't know enough about Spanish law but if this had happened in the UK then I'd say they'd also have a case against the police.

ETA:

According to the Daily Mail report:

A spokesman for the Civil Guard in Malaga said: "These men had aroused suspicion because of their appearance and the fact that they were speaking in a foreign language thought to be an Arabic language, and the pilot was refusing to take off until they were escorted off the plane."


So nope it's back to the airline - sounds as if the police were doing what they could do to keep the peace.

 

[Mephisto]

According to the Daily Mail report:

A spokesman for the Civil Guard in Malaga said: "These men had aroused suspicion because of their appearance and the fact that they were speaking in a foreign language thought to be an Arabic language, and the pilot was refusing to take off until they were escorted off the plane."


So nope it's back to the airline - sounds as if the police were doing what they could do to keep the peace.

I agree, the knee-jerk attitude is to blame the police when it was actually the passengers who initiated the wrongful action by the pilot who represents the airline.

What is so damn ominous about people in Europe speaking a foreign language? You Europeans are sounding about as ethno-centric as the Americans these days.

 

[alock]

I would like to think if I was on the flight I would have kicked up a fuss about the other passengers and once back in the UK I'd have made myself available to all media to put forward a different side i.e. that the flight was full of racist, bigoted fools!

On the other hand, I would have put myself forward to the media to provide an accurate account of what I saw. You appear to have already made up your mind as to what you think of these people (purely from a Daily Mail report) so you are there ideal witness.

 

[Ralph]

Oh, well they're certainly within their rights not to fly on that particular plane, nevermind.

P.S. What's the problem then?

Your post mentions something about "irrational mob violence". I don't see how talking to the crew & walking off the plane constitutes "irrational mob violence" .All the accounts I read indicate that it was all done in a very orderly fashion.

I still remember my first plane flight back the 60's. I was partly excited and partly apprehensive.......but the fear only involved the plane crashing. At that point in time it hadn't become fashionable yet for muslims to blow up planes so they could get laid in paradise. If I'd expressed concern back then about someone blowing the plane up I can understand how I could have been seen as being paranoid but given recent events---I don't see how the passengers were all that unreasonable.

None of us were there. We don't know what was going on but supposedly one the passengers heard something she didn't like. It hasn't been explained yet what that meant but she could very well have heard something that indicated a possible threat.

You were a trained sniper. You never had a hunch or gut feeling about a dangerous situation and erred on the side of caution because of it?

It's amazing how people seems to think how ridiculous it is to assume someone that looks a little sinister ( & wearing long leather coats on a hot day does just not look right) couldn't possibly be a terrorist because they are too smart for that. Any well planned terrorist attack on an airplane will more likely involve blue-eyed blonde females....not some guy with a beard holding a scimitar in his teeth so being suspicious of someone that looks suspicious is just being paranoid.

Do you think that it's possible that it might just be some lone nut out to kill as many people as he can because that's what allah wishes for him. Somebody that believes in an invisible sky-being who will reward him with a boatload of pussy if he kills a bunch of non-believers might just be a little crazy to begin with. Sometimes lunatics & psychotics really do look & act like lunatics & psychotics and I can't find all that much fault with the passengers for there actions.

 

[Darat]

On the other hand, I would have put myself forward to the media to provide an accurate account of what I saw. You appear to have already made up your mind as to what you think of these people (purely from a Daily Mail report) so you are there ideal witness.

Er not quite it comes from reading many accounts of the incident, including interviews with some of the passengers, quotes from the pilot, quotes from the airline, quotes from the Spanish civil police and so on. Obviously my conclusions about the racism and bigotry shown by some of the above may be wrong however so far the evidence shows that some of the passengers acted in racist and bigoted manner and the airline allowed those racist bigots to determine who could fly with "them".

Obviously if you have evidence to the contrary I am happy to change my conclusion.

 

[Darat]

...snip...

None of us were there. We don't know what was going on but supposedly one the passengers heard something she didn't like. It hasn't been explained yet what that meant but she could very well have heard something that indicated a possible threat.

...snip..

None of the reports I've read mention this - all of them mention that "someone" thought they (the two British people) were talking in something they thought was Arabic.

...snip...

It's amazing how people seems to think how ridiculous it is to assume someone that looks a little sinister ( & wearing long leather coats on a hot day does just not look right)

...snip...

Where did you read about "long leather coats"?

....snip...

not some guy with a beard holding a scimitar in his teeth so being suspicious of someone that looks suspicious is just being paranoid.

...snip..

Not read about anyone having a scimitar on them - that really would have been a breakdown in airport security so I would have expected at least someone to have mentioned this detail... ?

Do you think that it's possible that it might just be some lone nut out to kill as many people as he can because that's what allah wishes for him. Somebody that believes in an invisible sky-being who will reward him with a boatload of pussy if he kills a bunch of non-believers might just be a little crazy to begin with. Sometimes lunatics & psychotics really do look & act like lunatics & psychotics and I can't find all that much fault with the passengers for there actions.

Who was looking like a lunatic or psychotic - again none of the reports mention this aspect.

So far the grounds of suspicion seems to have been "they were speaking in we think not-English and weren't wearing a "kiss me quick" hat and carrying a straw donkey as all non-terrorists do"... (I may have embellished that paraphrasing ever so slightly...)

 

[Cylinder]

Passenger defends actions

A man on board a flight to Manchester from Malaga has defended passengers' actions after their suspicions led to two men being removed from the plane.
David Wearden, 42, from Chester, said it was reports that the pair had been overheard claiming they had 30 minutes left to live which led to concerns.

 

[Darat]

First time this has been mentioned as far as I know. None of the other passengers interviewed have claimed they said this - their claims have been that the two British passengers were "acting suspicious", "wearing the wrong clothes" and "speaking in 'Arabic'" so I would add this report to the rest and say it is at best nothing more then the result of Chinese whispers. (Note - Wearden does not state he or his family heard the men make such a comment.)

 

[Cylinder]

First time this has been mentioned as far as I know. None of the other passengers interviewed have claimed they said this - their claims have been that the two British passengers were "acting suspicious", "wearing the wrong clothes" and "speaking in 'Arabic'" so I would add this report to the rest and say it is at best nothing more then the result of Chinese whispers. (Note - Wearden does not state he or his family heard the men make such a comment.)

Certainly we don't have any way to judge that hypothesis. I agree that it is plausible that it could have happened that way. No-one is claiming that the men were shouting these comments across the terminal, so it would be likely in that instance that only a few people would hear them.

Do you agree that if true, these comments sort of changes the whole dynamic, right? What seems just as likely to my mind is a passenger with a mild fear of flying making an unfortunate joke or some jerk making a stupid comment about the foiled bomb plot.

 

[gumboot]

First time this has been mentioned as far as I know. None of the other passengers interviewed have claimed they said this - their claims have been that the two British passengers were "acting suspicious", "wearing the wrong clothes" and "speaking in 'Arabic'" so I would add this report to the rest and say it is at best nothing more then the result of Chinese whispers. (Note - Wearden does not state he or his family heard the men make such a comment.)

Do you think that David Wearden's actions are reasonable and rational, given HIS reasons as provided?

-Andrew

 

[Cylinder]

According to the article, it was not "Chinese whispers," but his own wife who claimed to have spoken to the womon who had allegedly overheard the comment:

We were then asked to get off the plane and go back to the airport where they did a full security check."

It was then, he said, that his wife Susanne began talking to another passenger who said she had sat next to the two men.

"She said she had heard them saying it was the last 30 minutes of their lives," said Mr Wearden.

"It may well be that the two simply thought they were being funny, but it perhaps better explains the passenger reaction."

 

[gumboot]

Do you agree that if true, these comments sort of changes the whole dynamic, right? What seems just as likely to my mind is a passenger with a mild fear of flying making an unfortunate joke or some jerk making a stupid comment about the foiled bomb plot.

It's also just as possible that, as the word spread, a few bigots and racists amongst the passengers (let's face it, we ALL have our prejudices, and in any random selection of the population you will get people like that) leapt onto the whole "arabic", "evil muslim terrorist" thing?

Given it was a false alarm, and the ensuing madness, if someone did overhear something about "30 mins to live" and they were a decent person, might they now feel rather guilty and not be too keen to go "actually I forced these poor people off the plane because of something I overheard, or something someone said they overheard..."

And if any decent rational people aren't speaking out due to guilt, might that leave only the bigots and racists (who, in my experience, are usually only to keen to announce their opinions to the world).

Seems unfair to label all the passengers as bigots and racists, and when an alternative rational motivation is offered, simply dismiss it out of hand as a "chinese whisper". That reeks of speaking from a firmly established position.

-Andrew

 

[Darat]

...snip...

Do you agree that if true, these comments sort of changes the whole dynamic, right? What seems just as likely to my mind is a passenger with a mild fear of flying making an unfortunate joke or some jerk making a stupid comment about the foiled bomb plot.

Yes if true it would cast a different light on the situation. I know there have been several instances when I've been flying when I've had to bite my tongue to stop me coming out with a sarcastic comment like "yeah that's right my belt is made from Semtex" - if I had said something like that I couldn't complain if I attracted a little bit more attention from the authorities...

So if the two passengers had said something like this then of course I would have expected the authorities to act.

However when such remarks have resulted in action in the past (e.g. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/shropshire/3457967.stm and http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/wales/south_west/4606849.stm) none of the authorities have been reluctant to mention why they acted. In this instance none of the statements issued by the authorities (the airline, the airport operators or the police) have mentioned anything at all about such comments.

 

[Darat]

Do you think that David Wearden's actions are reasonable and rational, given HIS reasons as provided?

-Andrew

Which actions?

 

[Darat]

According to the article, it was not "Chinese whispers," but his own wife who claimed to have spoken to the womon who had allegedly overheard the comment:

Substitute "hearsay" then - pretty much the same thing in this instance.

 

[Skeptic]

I don't think it's so much a matter of bigotry as such, but of crowd hysteria. By the time the story about this "incident" reached the back rows of the plane, it probably transformed itself from "two guys said something I don't understand" (by the way, is there any international flight where this doesn't happen?) to "two terrorists said in Arabic they'll blow the plane up right now".

 

[Cylinder]

It's also just as possible that, as the word spread, a few bigots and racists amongst the passengers (let's face it, we ALL have our prejudices, and in any random selection of the population you will get people like that) leapt onto the whole "arabic", "evil muslim terrorist" thing?

I suppose. The only real way for me to evaluate is to look at what I would do in a similar situation.

If I overheard anyone - regardless of ethnicity - make that comment I would report it discreetly and immediately. If someone spoke to me about overhearing the same comment who did not report it, I would report it in the same manner.

I think it safe to assume that ethnicity did play an unfair part in this incident. I just have a hard time chalking the whole incident up to racism out-of-hand, since there is a significant back-drop to it that must be considered.

Surely the answer to this problem isn't a large sign at an airport:

AVOID POSSIBLE OFFENSE: PLEASE KEEP YOUR SECURITY CONCERNS PRIVATE.