9/11 Mile High Club Attempt Prompts Heavy Anti-Terror Response

[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.

Contact the author of this article or email tips@gothamist.com with further questions, comments or tips.

By John Del Signore in News on September 12, 2011 9:15 AM

Comments [rss]

Cheap flights to Lahore

Only the traveling is good which reveals to me the value of home and enables me to enjoy it better.

Erik Lyngved

Sooo this story didn't really happen at all then? Great.

Guest

So the procedure which scrambles fighter jets to intercept errant aircraft actually DOES work. I see. Really great that it served to investigate a kissing couple, puking passenger, or whatever the story is now. Too bad it didn't work on 9/11.

Roger_the_Shrubber

In the future, everybody will be a terrorist for 15 minutes.

Peanut_Butter

Why does the MHC logo look like the Chrysler logo?

Qwerkie

You mean the wings that are supposed to represent the aviator badge?

TheOtherBob

It sounds like this was a case of "dude started puking, friend helped him out, cops inexplicably turned it into a big deal." And, you know...come on. People get sick on airplanes sometimes -- it sucks, but it happens. And when it does happen...I mean, when you're projectile vomiting, you don't want to be far from the can. (And I, as a passenger, don't want you to be far from the can. Yes, you're monopolizing one of the heads, but...beats the shit out of having you spew right next to me in the seats.)

People sometimes get sick -- bodily fluids come out sometimes at bad moments. This isn't a national security event.

Polite New Yorker

If this was a mile-high club attempt, then the couple timed their tryst badly, especially given heightened security on the anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks. But otherwise they should be applauded for trying to get their money's worth from their airline experience. If we stop having sex in airplane bathrooms, the terrorist win.

Joe Green

The most devastating attack on America took place on September 11, 2001 as Islamic radicals launched 3 different attacks on our nation. One on the Twin Towers in New York City, one on the Pentagon in Washington D.C., and one other that failed but ended when brave Americans sacrificed their lives to bring down their commercial airliner before it could do any more destruction on an unknown site. The response to those attacks was the pronounced war on terror across the world. Over this last 10 years, that war has been partially successful with the assassination of the leader of the 9-11 attacks, Osama Bin Laden. However, the war is far from over. The radical Islamists, driven by their religion and a desire to set up a caliphate, a worldwide dominion with the implementation of Sharia Law, the law of the Koran in this world, is evidence that another 9-11 could and will take place in the future.The ancient Jewish prophets foretold of a time in history as in the case in our world today. Daniel 11, Ezekiel 38, and Psalm 83 all reveal the alignment of nations that want to annihilate Israel but first they must take out America. Joel 2 tells of the world's largest militia that will be formed to accomplish the end time goal of radical Islam that worldwide kingdom, a caliphate. The 10th anniversary of 9-11 is indeed a stark reminder that Bible prophecy will be fulfilled.

Peanut_Butter

Someone please summarize the babble for me.

Mordicai

"The Bible says brown people want to destroy America! Somehow that makes sense? Despite the Bible being written by brown people a millennium & a half before there was America."

zombiebob

SHut the F up with your crazy. The Bible is for the most part a scam, and you are a fool.

krinklecutfires

This sounds awfully familiar, did I see you protesting in front of Lincoln Center this weekend?

AGWAGW

Really? Daniel, Ezekiel, and Psalms all mention that the enemies of Israel must "take out America" first? What was the Aramaic or Greek word for America back then?

edgie168

Cool story bro

AGWAGW

"It's not illegal, it's frowned upon, like [having sex in the bathroom of] an airplane."
"I'm pretty sure that's illegal, too."
"Yeah, maybe after 9/11, where everybody got so sensitive. Thanks a lot, bin Laden."