Update (3 December): Muslim Family Booted from AirTran Plane

AirTran, after initially refusing any responsibility, apologised Friday afternoon to the nine Muslims removed from its Washington to Orlando flight:

We regret that the issue escalated to the heightened security level it did. But we trust everyone understands that the security and the safety of our passengers is paramount.

Members and friends of the Irfan family were reportedly divided over whether to accept the apology. One of them, Khalif Irfan, said he was "very appreciative and surprised....It's a very generous gesture." However, Irfan added, "We have not ruled out the possibility of legal action.”

Meanwhile, the Council on Islamic American Relations has filed a complaint with the U.S. Department of Transportation over the incident: "We believe this disturbing incident would never have occurred had the Muslim passengers removed from the plane not been perceived by other travelers and airline personnel as members of the Islamic faith."

Flashback in the War on Terror: The Muslims at Shoney's Big Boy Restaurant

The story of the nine Muslim passengers taken off the AirTran flight from Washington to Orlando sparked a memory of earlier misunderstandings prompted by post-9/11 fear and cultural differences. I recall this one in particular because of the distinctiveness in US Southern life of Shoney's, the home of the "Big Boy" burger (and, of course, "Big Boy", the six-foot statue standing outside the entrance in red-and-white dungarees, burger proudly held aloft in his right hand):



'Bring it down' was about a car, students' lawyer says




September 15, 2002

MIAMI, Florida (CNN) -- A car, not a building, was what three Muslim medical students were talking about "bringing down" in a restaurant conversation that triggered the daylong closure of a Florida highway, lawyers for the students said Sunday.

"Our conversation at Shoney's had nothing to do with terrorism or 9/11 or 9/13," said Kambiz Butt, one of the three students. "We were basically sitting down having a regular conversation about our trip, the experience we were about to face in Miami, we were talking about school and friends."

Police in Florida detained Butt, 25; Ayman Gheith, 27; and Omer Choudhary, 23, for 17 hours Friday after a woman at the Shoney's in north Georgia told authorities she suspected they were plotting a terrorist attack in the Miami area. Investigators closed off a 20-mile stretch of Interstate 75 -- the major east-west connector in south Florida -- while they searched the students' cars.

Florida authorities were told to be on the lookout for the students, who were traveling in two cars, after the woman told police she heard one of the men asking, "Do you think we have enough to bring it down?" Another one of the men replied, "If we don't have enough to bring it down, I have contacts and we can get enough to bring it down."

The woman, Eunice Stone, said she was certain that meant the men wanted "to blow up something."

Brett Newkirk, a lawyer representing the students, said there was a legitimate explanation for what Stone overheard.

"Omer had a car that he wanted to have shipped down so that he could use it in Florida, to have it brought down -- 'Do you think we could bring the car down?' -- and he has some contacts that might get the car down," he said.

"You're going to see that these things, which can be construed with the pressure and the fear that would be going on right after the anniversary of September 11, were things which were quite innocent," he said.

Their lawyers said the men had no complaint with how law enforcement officers treated them, but they were retained to represent them in case Georgia officials bring charges against the students in connection with the incident.

Butt said they have "no animosity, no anger, toward Ms. Stone."

"She might have heard a few key words that she misconstrued, and she was trying to be a patriot, I guess, for America, which is understandable," he said.

The students were released without being charged Friday evening after investigators found they had no explosives or connections to terrorist organizations.

All three are U.S. citizens who attend Ross University Medical School on the Caribbean island of Dominica. They were en route to Miami to begin a nine-week internship at Larkin Community Hospital when they were stopped.

Since Friday, the hospital has asked the students to transfer somewhere else after receiving numerous threats. Hospital president Dr. Jack Michel said Saturday his hospital has received an overwhelming number of e-mails and phone calls that he described as "threatening, ethnic, racial e-mails directed at Muslim-Americans."

"We're medical students. We are not terrorists. Our primary concern in life is to become doctors. We want to help people. We don't want to hurt," Butt said. However, he said, their medical careers were "in limbo" after the incident.

"We don't know what's going to happen. We don't know if Georgia is planning to press any charges against us," he said. "We don't know if we're going to be able to go come back to the university. We have no idea where our lives are going to head right now, all because of a statement made by some woman."

The students took no questions during a news conference in suburban Miami held by the Council on American-Islamic Relations on Sunday, but Newkirk said the "full story" would come out within a few days.

Follow-Up: Nine Muslim Passengers Booted from AirTran Flight

Amy Gardner in The Washington Post now has a full account of the removal of the family and friends of Washington, D.C. tax lawyer Atif Irfan as they travelled from Washington to Orlando, Florida for a religious retreat.

Atif Irwan's brother Kashif: "My brother and his wife were discussing some aspect of airport security. The only thing my brother said was, 'Wow, the jets are right next to my window.' I think they were remarking about safety."



9 Muslim Passengers Removed From Jet: Others on Flight Say a Remark Was 'Suspicious'

Officials ordered nine Muslim passengers, including three young children, off an AirTran flight headed to Orlando from Reagan National Airport yesterday afternoon after two other passengers overheard what they thought was a suspicious remark.

Members of the party, all but one of them U.S.-born citizens who were headed to a religious retreat in Florida, were subsequently cleared for travel by FBI agents who characterized the incident as a misunderstanding, an airport official said. But the passengers said AirTran refused to rebook them, and they had to pay for seats on another carrier secured with help from the FBI.

Kashif Irfan, one of the removed passengers, said the incident began about 1 p.m. after his brother, Atif, and his brother's wife wondered aloud about the safest place to sit on an airplane.

"My brother and his wife were discussing some aspect of airport security," Irfan said. "The only thing my brother said was, 'Wow, the jets are right next to my window.' I think they were remarking about safety."

Irfan said he and the others think they were profiled because of their appearance. He said five of the six adults in the party are of South Asian descent, and all six are traditionally Muslim in appearance, with the men wearing beards and the women in headscarves. Irfan, 34, is an anesthesiologist. His brother, 29, is a lawyer. Both live in Alexandria with their families, and both were born in Detroit. They were traveling with their wives, Kashif Irfan's sister-in-law, a friend and Kashif Irfan's three sons, ages 7, 4 and 2.

AirTran spokesman Tad Hutcheson agreed that the incident amounted to a misunderstanding. But he defended AirTran's handling of the incident, which he said strictly followed federal rules. And he denied any wrongdoing on the airline's part.

"At the end of the day, people got on and made comments they shouldn't have made on the airplane, and other people heard them," Hutcheson said. "Other people heard them, misconstrued them. It just so happened these people were of Muslim faith and appearance. It escalated, it got out of hand and everyone took precautions."

Hutcheson confirmed that it was ultimately the pilot's decision to postpone the flight. But he said the pilot was influenced not only by the complaints from passengers but by the actions of two federal air marshals on board, who had learned of the incident and reported it to airport police.

As a result of that report, federal officials made the decision to order all 104 passengers from the plane and re-screen them and their luggage before allowing the flight to take off for Orlando -- two hours late and without the nine passengers.

Ellen Howe, a spokeswoman for the Transportation Security Administration, said the pilot acted appropriately.

"For us, it just highlights that security is everybody's responsibility," Howe said. "Someone heard something that was inappropriate, and then the airline decided to act on it. We certainly support [the pilot's] call to do that."

Howe added that the TSA's involvement was limited to conducting a security sweep of the plane after the passengers were removed. Airport police officers' only involvement was to hold the passengers in custody until the FBI arrived, said Tara Hamilton, a spokeswoman for the agency that runs the airport.

Hutcheson said AirTran is not likely to reimburse the passengers for the additional cost of their replacement tickets on USAirways. He said they were given a full refund for their AirTran fares and may fly on the carrier now that the investigation is complete.

The detained passengers said that is not likely.

"It was an ordeal," said Abdur Razack Aziz, the family friend who was also detained. "Nothing came out of it. It was paranoid people. It was very sad."

Holiday Story of the Day: Muslim Family Looks for Safe Seats, Gets Booted Off Flight

Follow-Up: Nine Muslim Passengers Booted from AirTran Flight
Follow-up: Flashback in the War on Terror --- The Muslims at Shoney's Big Boy Restaurant

From CNN:

A Muslim family removed from an airliner Thursday after passengers became concerned about their conversation say AirTran officials refused to rebook them, even after FBI investigators cleared them of wrongdoing.

Atif Irfan said federal authorities removed eight members of his extended family and a friend after passengers heard them discussing the safest place to sit and misconstrued the nature of the conversation.

Irfan, a U.S. citizen and tax attorney, said he was "impressed with the professionalism" of the FBI agents who questioned him, but said he felt mistreated when the airline refused to book the family for a later flight.