frightening flight experience

[Yelof]

She survived a flight with 14 harmless Syrian musicians -- then spread 3,000 bigoted and paranoid words across the Internet. As a pilot and an American, I'm appalled

Sorry Salon link you may have to go via their add to get to see it, click enter Salon premium

Intriguing, no? I, for one, fully admit that certain acts of airborne crime and treachery may indeed open the channels to a debate on civil liberties. Pray tell, what happened? Gunfight at 37,000 feet? Valiant passengers wrestle a grenade from a suicidal operative? Hero pilots beat back a cockpit takeover?

Well, no. As a matter of fact, nothing happened. Turns out the Syrians are part of a musical ensemble hired to play at a hotel. The men talk to one another. They glance around. They pee.

That's it?

That's it.

[xoxoxoBruce]

The follow up link that Breakingnews posted says nobody checked to see if they really were musicians.......that we know of.

And if they were, the bass player is suspect.

[Kitsune]

I'm not suggesting we ignore everyone else, I'm suggesting we don't *intentionally* exclude the most likely type of potential perp because we're afraid we'll hurt someone's feelings. Big difference.

Fair enough -- I think, also, that it would be a bad thing to not do a security check on someone because it might hurt their feelings. You can't be concerned with that when people's safety is at stake. Maybe we should be basing security checks on skin color/appearance. Should this also apply elsewhere? If so, in what situations?