There are two sides to every story. AA has
released the written statements of the Capt
and their SOC Mgr. If you choose to believe
them, the SS agent needs to seriously
increase his professionalism.

I tried to post the statements here, but
they are apparently too large. Send me an
email if you'd like a copy.

-doug

AA's statement indicates that the BWI police officer agreed that the SS agent had gotten verbally abusive to the pilot.

That's a verifiable fact attributed to an observer who isn't an AA employee.

If this is authenticated by BWI Police, then the SS agent won't have a leg to stand on.

Here it is, entire statement of AA and the pilot:

FORT WORTH, Texas � American Airlines today said it would not be deterred from protecting the safety of its passengers by frivolous claims of racial profiling asserted by the Washington, D.C. law firm of Relman & Associates.

The company said: "American carries out its security obligations according to the guidelines provided by the Federal government. Those guidelines are applied equally among all passengers, and the company vigorously resents any suggestion of racial discrimination.

"Threats of lawsuits will not deter us from justly applying the security programs established to protect the tens of millions of customers who entrust us with their lives each year."

[...] "While we�ll let the reports speak for themselves, we will reiterate that American will not allow any armed individual onboard, regardless of who he or she is, if that person is angry or acting in a manner that the crew believes could jeopardize the safety of the flight."

American can confirm that, as stated in the captain�s report, he has filed a letter of complaint with the Secret Service.

see this link for full text:

http://www.amrcorp.com/news/january02/03_safety.htm

The AA statements and the statements of the Secret Service Agent and his seatmate disagree on this point. The agent and seatmate say that he was asked to leave his seat to answer questions. The AA statements don't say why he left his seat at all, actually; just that he left the aircraft.

But I think DallaStarwooDelta is correct in highlighting this issue. If the agent left his seat without being requested to do so and left the aircraft of his own volition, I'm far more inclined to cut the crew more slack on their suspicions. If the crew or ground staff requested that he deplane for additional questioning, it seems like a deliberate CYA to leave that out of the filed reports.

There are some discrepancies on details between the pilot's statment and the SCOC's, but things get lost in conversations (people's memories are rarely perfect when it comes to precise chronologies or word for word retelling of a conversation after all). I'm willing to chalk up the differences to the frailty of memory unless the crew or ground staff requested the agent to proceed to the jetway for questions. Then I admit I'd view the pilot's statement with a bit more critical eye.

I suspect the truth of the matter once tempers flared is somewhere between the two accounts. In other words, both men were nervous and became short tempered and unprofessional. While that reflects badly on both men, given their professional positions, I think most of us can recall situations in which we wish we acted more professionally in our own lives, too.

After reading all of the accounts so far, I think probably both men owed each other an apology. I can give them both some latitude for not handling the situation as best as they could have. But it appears that these men are unable or unwilling to see things from the other's perspective. Now that lawyers are involved, I doubt a mutual apology will be in the offing. My guess is that AA will ultimately want to avoid more negative publicity and will settle, which will effectively prevent us from ever getting a clearer picture of what transpired.

P.S. Note to attorneys on both sides: presumably, there were other pax within hearing distance who might be able to confirm one side of the story or the other?

(Edited to correct a typo)


[This message has been edited by HollyHP (edited 01-03-2002).]

I did find it interesting that the witness for the Secret Service Agent apparently had no financial or employee connection with American Airlines. He also apparently had no other connection with either the Agent or the Service other than ending up in the next seat.

Just a random PAX like any of the rest of us.

If this is the case, then he's the most disinterested (read objective) viewpoint of the whole fiasco for everything he witnessed. At least the part on the aircraft. That his reported description of events differs in tone and viewpoint from the crew is.. well.. surprising. I thought the crew were supposed to be acting professional.

It also speaks very poorly of the AA personnel if they failed to mention that the *reason* he left the aircraft was at *their* request. If that is the case and they played those kind of word games in their report, it makes the other parts of their statement less reliable.

I'd be very interested in hearing more from that passenger or others nearby, as well as the police officer in the airport. To me, they seem the least self-interested and the most likely to give us a clearer picture of what actually was happening, since their careers aren't directly affected by this.

As always, YMMV.

Regards,
-Bouncer-

First two questions

1. What is a LEO?
2. What is an SOC?

thanks, now I think the SS agent made an error in leaving the aircraft and could have handled things a bit better knowing 1. He's of middle eastern descent, 2. knowing the tighter security we are all under and 3. just knowing that you don't leave a plane without asking the FA once you board.

However that being said, I have numerous issues with the AA Pilot:

He says the following:

1. He appeared nervous and anxious. (although the pax next to him states otherwise)
2. This was an AA issue and none of his concern (If I'm denied boarding, I would consider this of my concern, duhhhh)
3. At this time the individual became very hostile with me (again, seems to be contradictory opinions to this from the seatmate, and I don't hear other pax stating that he was very hostile)
4. *Flt atts bringing to my attention what appeared to be strange behavior (Why, b/c he had a book albeit in arabic, if that is true, then BAN these books so every pax with an arabic written book isn't a suspect) (Again, seatmate doesn't say he had strange behavior)
5. While the police were determining the proper status of this individual this person came up to me with loud abusive comments as to his being denied boarding. (SS admits behavior, but why did it take 5 times to review his ID, did they miss something the first FOUR times, dang I'd be upset too)
6. . If he just let us do our job of getting the paper work in order, he would have been boarded, and it would have been a pleasure to carry an 'armed passenger'(pure speculation here, but that is total BS)
7. As a note, I am filling [sic] a misconduct report with the Secret Services Internal Affairs division. I would suggest that AA Security follow up on this matter because this individual made the entire crew uncomfortable with his actions and absolutely with his confrontational behavior toward me (IMHO This guy just sounds like a vengeful renegade pilot)

SOC

1. I asked if he had looked at the agent credentials. He said you work for the airline, you know how easy it would be to get fake I.D (so I guess my ID and yours and everyone elses should be checked five times at the check in, the gate, security b/c we can all easily get a fake ID, especially a SS ID)
2. The next phone call I received was from the AA ticket agent at BWI. He said that the Secret Service agent had verbally abused the Captain and that the Captain was denying him boarding. I asked to speak to the police officer that was witness to this, who then verified what the ticket agent had stated. (Why didn't they bring this up then, especially since they knew he had a weapon)Based on this, I then decided to end boarding to this passenger on future AA flights (Can a SOC do this?, doesn't this kind of decision have to come from a higher authority at the airline?) . Later, I received a call from the AA ticket agent at BWI and was asked to talk to this Secret Service Agent. I then heard the Secret Service Agent's side of the story. He admitted to not properly filling out the paperwork for carrying a weapon (which wasn't the brightest thing to do); not once, but twice (or had he traveled before where he had to fill this form out?). He also admitted to losing his temper with the Captain because he was asked for his ID five separate times (see above comment).


All said and done, I don't blame the agent for hiring an attorney, if it indeed is frivilous then it will be tossed from court.. but let the courts decide that based on the facts.

If American Airlines really concerns about the safety of millons of passengers as stated in their press release... why didn't they maintain and repair the aircraft Flight 587. http://dailynews.yahoo.com/htx/ap/20...ane_crash.html

The AA executives are as arrogant as that pilot... Well, it's time for me to boycott American Airlines and its Oneworld partners.

Geez, what did AA do to you?

The link doesn't say anything about a conclusive linkage between the software error and the crash. You jumped to a conclusion and bashed AA.

Similar to what some people did in this thread.

To respond to the "the seatmate didn't see this" question, given that BWI police plus the gate agent was involved, do you think the whole discussion took place on the aircraft?

Though it hasn't been stated yet, I suspect most of the confrontation went on in the boarding area.

The plane was ready to depart, and was only waiting for connecting pax. So it's a reasonable inference that this witness was already seated, and he wouldn't have been allowed to leave the aircraft while the crew is investigating the SS agent. So did this "seatmate witness" see the whole thing, or did he only see the parts on the aircraft??

More information is needed, but I think the key witness should be the BWI police officer. He's an impartial observer, having no conneciton to AA, and he has been named to have been present to observe the key offense, being abusive and threatening toward the crew.

Need I remind everyone that had AA and security personnel been diligent on 9-11, Mohammad Atta would nver had been allowed to board. He did everything but walk aboard with a "Hijacker" T-shirt on, yet despite all the red-flags, no one took it upon him/her self to question him. (Probaby because of the fear of PC Nazis jumping all over the case). Post 9-11, its still better to be safe than sorry, period.

In the press release the Captain was convinced he was a real Secret Service agent (Captain wrote "As it turned out he was an actual LEO").

This is a rather mundane observation.
Or are you misreading this to imply the captain knew from the very beginning he was a real SS agent? It seems so!
So you think the captain is saying his questioning of documents was frivolous, since he knew anyway. No, that's the position of the other press release. Guess you should read your own link again.

se94583

I agree with your post!

When typing into this form, you do not have to hit enter at the end of the line. It will do the word wrap just fine for you. Other wise
each of
your posts
gets much
longer than
it should be
because of hitting enter each time.

thanks

I'm sensing that we may have some stress here