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9/11 Mile High Club Attempt Prompts Heavy Anti-Terror Response
By
John Del Signore
Published Sep 12, 2011
Modified Sep 12, 2011
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By
John Del Signore
Published Sep 12, 2011
Modified Sep 12, 2011
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[UPDATE BELOW] Sure, it's the tenth anniversary of the September 11th attacks, and you're flying on a day when there's extremely heightened security, but if you don't seize the opportunity to join the Mile High Club now, doesn't that mean Al Qaeda has won? Such apparently was the reasoning (or lack thereof) of an amorous couple on a Frontier Airlines flight from Denver to Detroit yesterday. After they slipped into the W.C. for an intimate encounter, their "suspicious behavior" was reported to the TSA, and F-16 fighter jets were scrambled to chaperone the plane to Detroit.
A Frontier spokesman tells the AP the couple was in the bathroom for "an extraordinarily long time," and law enforcement sources tell ABC they were totally "making out." When the plane landed in Detroit at 3:30 p.m., it taxied away from the terminal to a remote spot on the airfield. The 116 passengers waited about a half hour, and then passenger Belinda Duggan tells the AP, "All of a sudden, a SWAT team went through and saying, 'Please place your hands on the seat in front of you.' " (Also, get dressed.)
Three unidentified passengers were detained, and eventually released. An airport spokesman tells the AP that the response wasn't unusual. "Regardless of why it was triggered, whenever we get a radio call of a security problem on board, our response is the same one we would have had yesterday, tomorrow," Wintner said. "We always react as if it's the end of the world. If it isn't, so be it."
The incident took place around the same time that fighter jets were scrambled in response to another report of suspicious activity aboard an American Airlines flight from Los Angeles to JFK. This one was also bathroom-related—ABC reports the pilot became spooked by passengers' frequent trips to and from the restroom. Three male passengers—two Israelis, one Russian—were reportedly drunk and refused to follow flight attendant instructions. But after the plane landed at JFK, they were questioned and released.
UPDATE:The AP has heavily revised their initial report, in light of a statement sent out by the FBI this morning insisting "there never were two people in the bathroom at the same time." The FBI tells the AP a man who was not feeling well went to the bathroom and another man followed. ABC, however, has not issued a correction; their sources told them two people were "making out" in the bathroom.
Tagged
9/11
air travel
bad idea
frontier airlines
makeout
mile high club
John Del Signore
Originally from the Albany area, John Del Signore has called NYC home since 1995. In addition to his thousands of meticulously-crafted bespoke blog posts for Gothamist, his writing has also been published in The Awl, Deadspin, The Nervous Breakdown, and performed at The Brick Theater in Brooklyn.
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Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
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