USAir it is the TSA, TSA no it is USAir -- here's the story..

Students say they were questioned before NC flight
Posted: Nov 25, 2011 11:52 AM CST Updated: Nov 25, 2011 1:22 PM CST

CHARLOTTE, N.C. (AP) - Students from the United Arab Emirates were taken off a Thanksgiving Day flight from Charlotte to Washington and rescreened by security, causing the flight to be delayed for more than four hours.

Three of the students told WJLA-TV in Washington (http://wj.la/vWN9fl ) they were pulled from the plane and questioned about the purpose of their trip and whether they had military training. They now want an apology.

The rest is here...http://www.wkow.com/story/16122230/s...fore-nc-flight

Sorry Mike, this was strictly a flight crew issue, TSA had nothing to do with it.

Yup, another paranoid pilot who pulled the see something say something card.

"US Airways pilot requested Charlotte airport police assist in removing individuals from the plane because of a perceived security concern."

Students from the United Arab Emirates = perceived security concern

Actually it was brown people = perceived security concern. I'm sure the UAE part didn't materialize until they were questioned by the authorities.

It took four hours to re-screen them by security. That probably is TSA doing the re-screening.

Also, I believe that AP updated their story that removed this portion "A US Airways spokeswoman confirmed the flight was delayed because of a security issue, but referred further questions to the Transportation Security Administration. A TSA spokesman referred questions back to the airline." Which I just copied from the Washington Post. It was that comment that led to my US Airways - TSA comment originally.

It was undoubtedly a paranoid crew member that started this, but the TSA joined in and did their usual bang up job of delaying a flight for four hours for nothing other than an abundance of caution, in these days of terrorists being everywhere, including those that have gone through x layers of infallible TSA security layers.

Of course the article said nothing of the actions or behavior of the "students" that raised suspicion with the flight crew. You know students of any flavor would NEVER do anything to draw attention to themselves.

I don't fault the flight crew for the call for more screening -- or the TSA/LEOs for conducting the screening in this instance. What I do fault, is the airline causing the remaining passengers a delay as a result. The questionable passengers should have been removed for further screening and the flight should have continued to the destination on schedule with the remaining passengers aboard.

Once again, all passengers had to suffer because of the actions of a few...

You mean a few staff members, not passengers, right?

Being brown, speaking "furrin". As for not delaying the flight - surely the TSA will have needed to question the complainant in order to find out what the concerns were. Or are you saying that it's acceptable for random people to be taken off planes on the say so of someone?

If that was the case, do you not believe that there would be massive delays every time students flew for Spring Break? Perhaps a school field trip would present a problem, or if an ROTC band corps was traveling to an event? Except, I have never heard of any additional screening and flight delays for security reasons with these examples of students, so try not to be so quick to blame the students.


IN addition, I have no idea why you place the students in quotation marks, are you suggesting they were not students, but something else?

As usual there are insufficient details to come to any conclusion.

Scenario 1: the students were sitting quietly in their seats and the crew decided to arbitrarily play the FWB card.

Scenario 2: the students were engaged in unusual and/or non-compliant activities on the plane.

Or somewhere in between. Although it is possible they were completely innocent and innocuous (scenario 1), my feeling is there was more to it to require a 4-hour investigation. This was a lot more than re-screening.

While I completely agree that all the facts have not been published; I saw something (according to the Washington Post neither US airways or the TSA will provide any details as to why they were pulled and pass the responsibility to each other) so I will say something (US Airways crew overreacted and that led to TSA and perhaps other agencies overreacting).

Furthermore someone up-thread indicated that it had to be something because it took four hours, frankly I can see the airline and TSA easily chewing through 4 hours deciding on who gets to sign what paper work when so that none of them can take the blame. The actual recheck probably took less than 1/2 hour.

At the request of the aircraft PIC. Not something that the TSA had a choice in. The four hours comes from the 2 additional flight crews being called in to take the flight over the first of those also refusing to fly.

I understand. TSA is ultimately responsible for the safety of flights in the USA (says so in the TSA authorization act), so security issues are always referred back to the TSA, even if TSA was not involved in the decisions. Kinda sucks being stuck in the middle like that, but that�s why the management folks get the big bucks.

TSA had nothing to do with the delays Mike. This was strictly an airline / pilot issue. TSA�s involvement was peripheral at best, and not by choice.

It sounds like you have personal knowlege of the incident that goes beyond what was reported in the media. Is that correct?

I was referring to the middle eastern students. Although not enough information is available for a complete analysis of the incident, airlines (and their personnel) operate with monetary filter in all decisions.

My belief and trust will rest with the professional flight crew -- and their reasons for requesting the actions taken -- knowing that they personally weighed the financial impact of the delay on their employer as well as the rest of the passengers. What ever the reason, the flight crew felt enough concern with the situation, that (according to TSORon) the flight crew did not make the flight and another crew was called in as a result of the re-screening and/or delay (it could have caused them to "timeout" on their duty day).

I personally do not believe that a flight deck crew would make that decision without good reason -- a reasonable belief that this group created some flight safety risk based upon their behavior or statements during or after the boarding process.