Last week an extended family of Muslim Indians were removed from an Airtran flight from Washington D.C. to Orlando.  It made the news in several places but here is an LA Times / Associated Press version of the events.  Scroll down to read the story.

 

I take issue with several details of this story actually.  First, this happened to US born US Citizens of this country.  That in itself is highly objectionable to me because it is clear that this issue formed as a function of their appearance and the assumed religious identification of these folks.  That is xenophobia. 

 

Second, the conversation they had which prompted the reaction by passengers was a conversation that I have personally heard  spoken on many flights and that includes a conversation between myself and my wife the last time we flew together to New York state.  It’s a conversation that many people have because the infrequent traveler wants to feel safe on an airplane.  Now, when my wife asked me about the “safest” part of an airplane to sit in, my own response was that I couldn’t imagine a “safe” place to sit on an airplane traveling hundreds of miles an hour about to hit the ground.  I also said that it’s foolish, in my opinion, to believe such a place exists on airplane that is going to crash.  No one objected to that conversation or many of the others I’ve overheard on airplanes since 2001.

 

Third, even if I concede it might have been something worth checking out, at the least, the FBI cleared this family to travel after speaking with them and the TSA cleared *all* of the luggage traveling on the airplane.   The FBI actually encouraged Airtran to carry on and, still, they were kept back.  Why?  Because airlines have decided to leave such a decision in the hands of the captain of an airplane and, at the same time, encourage pilots to *always* take the path that is most “sure” in such situations.  In other words, captains are simply encouraged to deny boarding to the suspect passengers on that immediate flight because it keeps everyone settled.

 

I take objection to that.  I would like to see a captain and his crew show some moral courage and simply indicate that such passengers, after being fully checked out, were OK to fly and they therefore were going to continue on the flight as every other paying passenger would expect to do so if it were them.   There was absolutely nothing to be afraid of whatsoever. 

 

Terrorists come in all shapes, sizes, religious denominations and physical appearances.  For us to accept that it is morally correct to seize upon someone as a potential terrorist simply because they are of the same race or religion as those terrorists of September 11, 2001 is stupid and ignorant of the way the world works. 

 

Want more proof?  The two people who initiated this concern with the flight crew were teenage girls.  I have a teenage girl of my own and I assure you that teenagers are *not* capable of making a credible judgement about someone who might be strange to them.  They are still kids, not adults and they certainly do not possess the life experience necessary to make such judgements.  That is why they are under the custody of adults, their parents. 

 

Airtran has most likely lost this Muslim Indian family as a set of customers for life.  By my count, that probably cost them about nine airfares to a destination that many families repeatedly visit.   All in favor of two teenage girls.   That was a foolish business decision. 

 

I have said it before and I will say it here.  The likelihood that a group of terrorists could take over an airplane, pilot it to a city such as New York City and crash one or more aircraft into a building after the tragedy of September 11, 2001 is so small that you have a far bigger risk of getting killed by lightening.   Do you wander out everyday wondering if this is your day to be killed by lightening?  The reason that attack was successful was because airlines have for years trained their staff to cooperate with a hijacker to get the plane to the ground where almost always the situation is resolved without deaths.  It was, until September 11, 2001, a very rational and very reasonable strategy.

 

Now it isn’t.  No plane will ever let someone or a group hijack an airplane in that manner ever again.  Not the passengers and not the flight crew.  Think I’m wrong?  Take a long look at how every other incident of someone losing control on an airplane or of someone attempting to breach a cockpit door has ended since flying began again in the post September 11 world.  Every person has been met with overwhelming force from passengers and flight crew and ultimately restrained. 

 

No, the next big attack won’t be by airplane.  It will be by another strategy that someone will use to take advantage of a security weakness either in another transportation mode (did you know that trains didn’t screen passengers and luggage like the airlines until the last year) or through a delivery method that is simply unpredictable at this time.  And it won’t necessarily be by Muslim terrorist either.  If you think I’m wrong, let me point you to the Oklahoma City bombing by a white Irish Catholic man named Timothy McVeigh.

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