AirTran Flight 297: Terror “Dry Run” or Internet Hoax?

[PhilDernerJr]

:arrow: AirTran Flight 297: Terror “Dry Run” or Internet Hoax? (http://nycaviation.com/2009/12/07/airtran-297-terror-dry-run-or-internet-hoax/)

I see a few contradictions in the man's story, but though AirTran disputes a fact or two, they don't right-out say that it didn't happen.

[hiss srq]

On another forum which I lurk on there was a large discussion about this story and the account that was posted there had a few holes shot in it so to speak. One of the stories had an account that the crew walked off the flight after the police and DHS cleared the passengers in question and that within a few minutes a new crew from reserve was brought on to operate the flight. I am not sure that even at ATL they would be able to pull a crew together too fast though so I digress but if it is factual it is indeed a little frighteneing and suspicious.

[Matt Molnar]

I think it probably did happen, but were they terrorists? No.

Usually bad guys try to keep a low profile. What purpose would it serve to make as big a disturbance as possible to the point you get kicked off the plane?

They were probably a group from the Middle East or Africa with no knowledge of Western manners. On flights in their country probably everyone acts like this.

[LGA777]

Here is one big whole in the story for me. The crew walked off, and in a few minutes another arrived to take their place. So according to the gentleman who claims he was a passenger on the flight. The 1st crew left an entire planeload of passengers on the aircraft un-attended until a new crew could be rounded up? I really don't think so. Refusing to fly a trip is one thing, abandaning your passengers with no crew members left onboard, probably grounds for immediate termination for the entire crew, really doubt it happened that way. FAA would likely have some major things to say about that !

My 2 cents

LGA777

[emshighway]

It is being considered a non-incident (officially). It appears to be a language problem. The different blog stories are being taken a legitimate news sources.

There are request for PD and TSA all the time from crew who state a person didn't immediately comply to their commands including incoming flight. The person is interviewed and allowed to leave.

[Arinyc]

Remember the controversy a few years back when a group of Middle Eastern musicians on a US domestic flight caused a stir (including allegations of a "terror dry run") by behaving in a manner that was seen as suspicious? Blogs kept the thing ablaze for months. Except they weren't al Qaeda. They were a touring band.

My hunch in the AirTran case is the same as what other posters have said: Something did happen, most likely a group of men from a culture not known to and/or not sitting well with other passengers boarded a plane and started doing things that wouldn't be much of a problem on Fuglistan Avia but raised alarm on Air Tran.

The aforementioned other pax got (understandably if maybe excessively) scared and the Internet did the rest. I have a feeling that if al Qaeda wants to down my plane they aren't going to send an illiterate in a turban who watches porn videos in public.

[pgengler]

AirTran ‘hero' wasn't on plane, airline says (http://www.ajc.com/business/airtran-hero-wasn-t-226517.html)
It's a little easier to understand why a Houston man who claimed to have thwarted a potential terrorist attack on a flight leaving Atlanta has not answered repeated requests to tell his story.

He was not on the plane, AirTran Airways says.

"After conducting additional research into this situation, we have verified, according to flight manifests [legally binding documents] that the individual that allegedly created a first-hand account of events on-board AirTran Airways Flight 297, a Theodore Petruna, was never actually on-board the flight," AirTran said in a statement, which the The Atlanta Journal-Constitution was the first to obtain.

...

According to AirTran, shortly after 4:40 p.m. on Nov. 17, Flight 297 bound for Houston taxied toward the runway of Atlanta's Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport. But before the Boeing 717 made it to the runway, the pilot decided to return the plane to the gate. A flight attendant had apparently asked a male passenger twice to put away a cellphone or camera, but the man had not done so. The flight attendant then took the device from the man.

At the gate, the passenger -- who didn't speak English -- and a companion were asked to leave the plane, which they did without incident, the airline reported.

When it was determined the problem was caused by a language barrier, AirTran and Transportation Security Administration officials allowed the man, and 12 others traveling with him, to reboard, and the flight left for Houston a little more than two hours later. Later, officials said the entire incident was the result of a miscommunication.

Nancy Deveikis was seated directly behind the unidentified man on the flight. She believes he spoke Spanish. Deveikis said the man was looking at pictures on a camera and did not understand the flight attendant's requests to turn the device off.

Petruna's account was drastically different. It was forwarded to others by A. Gene Hackemack, who vouched for him as a former NASA colleague. Petruna claimed he witnessed an incident involving Middle Eastern passengers on the flight and attempted to stop the incident from escalating.

"I grabbed the man who had been on the phone by the arm and said ‘you will go sit down or you will be thrown from this plane,' " Petruna wrote. Continuing, Petruna said 11 men dressed in "full attire" speaking Arabic got on the plane together.

...

There was no way Petruna could have seen what he described on Flight 297, AirTran said in a statement. Petruna departed from Akron-Canton, Ohio, on AirTran Flight 205 on Nov. 17, officials said. He was supposed to connect to Flight 297 for Houston, but he missed his first flight out of Ohio. And therefore, he missed the connecting flight.

AirTran said Flight 297 first left its gate at 4:40 p.m., "a full 26 minutes before Flight 205 arrived at the gate in Atlanta, making this flight connection impossible."