‘Suspicious’ fliers removed from US Air flight

By Paul Sperry

Two passengers acting “suspiciously” aboard a Ft. Lauderdale-bound US Airways flight were removed by authorities during an emergency stop in Charlotte, N.C., the airline said today.

One passenger aboard Wednesday’s Flight 1070 described the bounced passengers as “Middle-Eastern-looking men.”

In an interview, a spokesman for the Arlington, Va.-based airline declined to describe the nationality of the men, or what they were doing aboard the plane to warrant the emergency landing.

“There was suspicious activity aboard the aircraft with a couple of the passengers that caused the captain to divert to Charlotte,” US Airways spokesman David Castelveter told WorldNetDaily.

He says local police, and possibly FBI agents, boarded the aircraft and removed the passengers.

Phone calls to the FBI were not immediately returned.

Castelveter says the jet sat on the tarmac for less than an hour in Charlotte.

The passenger says US Airways crewmembers searched the seats and even removed the cushions where the two men had been sitting. They also checked seat pockets and overhead compartments.

Before taking off for Ft. Lauderdale, the captain announced to the cabin that “he got word about a threat made to our flight, and he decided to land in Charlotte,” the passenger said.

“We sat on the ground 15 minutes or so before the captain came on the PA and told us, sorry, he didn’t want to alert the suspects with an earlier PA,” the passenger said.

“We were all wondering where we were; 9-11 was on our minds,” the rattled traveler added.

Castelveter would not say if the men showed up on any federal watch list, but it’s doubtful. He says US Airways flew them to Ft. Lauderdale the next day.

The spokesman says Flight 1070, which left Pittsburgh at 9:10 p.m. Wednesday, was scheduled to arrive in Ft. Lauderdale at 11:46 p.m. He’s not sure when it finally did arrive there, but the passenger says it was around 1 a.m. Thursday.

Paul Sperry

Paul Sperry, formerly WND's Washington bureau chief, is a Hoover Institution media fellow and author of "Infiltration: How Muslim Spies and Subversives have Penetrated Washington." Read more of Paul Sperry's articles here.