Here's how it went down Jiggle (Sorry, I'm cutting and pasting this from a post I had on another web sight).
When I entered the gate area and saw these guys sitting together, I immediately had an uneasy feeling and mentioned it to my wife. The best I can describe is the feeling one would have walking down any dimly lit street in any major metro area at night. You approach a group of 5 people on the corner, shouting at passing cars. You don't pay a whole lot of attention to what they are wearing, you just don't make eye contact and hope like hell that they don’t begin to follow you down the street upon passing them by. Then they do.........
None of the men had on anything that would distinguish them as some sort of cleric, and even if they did, I don't think it would have made any difference in the vibe I was getting.
While waiting for the plane, one of the younger men walked over to where we were standing and started throwing papers away in the garbage, shredding up most of what he was throwing away. He was there for about 2-3 minutes.
I never saw the praying that has been so widely reported, but once I walked onto the plane, one of the group was sitting in first class - aisle seat. As I entered the main cabin, another one with dark glasses on was standing in the front row while everyone boarded the plane. (I later found out he was blind, but didn’t know that at the time.)
My wife and I were seated in row 9, next to another one of the group who sat in the aisle chair. After everyone got their seat, the one standing then asked to exchange seats with a young man who was also in row nine, but in the other aisle seat. The remaining two were seated in the back of the plane. If I were going to take over a plane, that’s exactly how I would have set myself up.
The two proceeded to speak in Arabic for the next 20 minutes or so. My thoughts, at this point, literally turned to "What am I personally going to do if these guys start to make some sort of a move?" I could see my wife was nervous, but we didn't talk. I later found out a girl sitting directly in front of us understood Arabic and alerted the flight crew as to what they were saying. She was writing some pretty lengthly reports after we deboarded. I also found out after the fact that 3 of them only had one way tickets and no luggage.
Notice again how, for me, praying never even comes into this?
Two police came onto the plane, the two next to us immediately shut up and one was actually pretending to be trying to get some sleep. Those officers went to the back of the plane for about 5 minutes, then left. About 10 mintes later, 3-4 police and some plain clothes marshals came on, went to the back and then worked there way forward tapping each of these guys on the shoulder to follow them.
US Air handled this admirably. No one panicked, even though it was evident by the look in the eye of one of the flight attendant as to what was going on. After the group was taken off, each of the men were brought back one at a time to retrieve their carry-ons. I looked out the window and saw that the police had brought over a dog. The flight attendants then opened every overheard compartment and verified with each passenger if what was up there was theirs.
US Air, after the men left, announced that anyone who wanted to leave the plane could and they would arrange for another flight. Only a few did.
We then deplaned and the airline unloaded all the luggage from the belly and brought the dogs on board. 3 hours later, we were back on the plane heading for Phoenix. And I couldn’t have been happier.
I applaud as loud as I can for the job the Airline did in this situation, on the eve of the busiest travel day of the year. They assured us that if for ANY reason they felt this plane wasn’t safe, they wouldn’t have left. After watching them in action, that was good enough for me.
And to think I had just watched United 97 last week.
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