Air France Flight to Dulles International Airport Diverted; Two Passengers

WASHINGTON (AP) - A flight from Paris bound for Dulles International Airport was diverted Saturday night after U.S. Customs officials detained two passengers aboard, officials said.
Air France Flight 026 was diverted to Bangor, Maine, when officials realized that one of the passengers was on the U.S. no-fly list.

Yolanda Clark, a spokeswoman for the Transportation Security Administration, said authorities were investigating why the passenger was allowed to board the plane in Paris. The other person detained was traveling with the banned passenger. Both were in the custody of local law enforcement in Maine, Clark said.

The plane eventually flew on to Dulles, arriving more than two hours late.

http://ap.tbo.com/ap/breaking/MGB2KNQWS1E.html

with him this time. Poor guy.

before they get on the plane and the plane takes off.

Who did they grab?

know better than to fly together.

I guess it was just too sensational to have detained CAT STEVENS... who, ack!, changed his name to one of those terrorist-sounding names!!!

A freind who's in a position to know tells me that many recent flights from Paris, in Detroit at least, have been met by security who check passports as passengers get off the plane.

The bush regime has put so much hate for France in everyone that they assume ever thing coming from France must be scrutinized more.
Who would have ever thought, after all that France has done for this democracy that our government would turn around and treat the people from France with such disdain.
They did after all help the US gain freedom from the Brits.

Send more Pretzels to the White House France!

... France dares to be secular and have their own foreign policy. What do they think they are, a sovereign nation or something?!

Seriously, I first noticed the fundie hate for France a few years ago on the 'net. They loved to obsess on the French defeat of 1940 and claimed it could all be traced to a basic immorality and lack of faith on the part of the French people.

They seem to be using the French as a hobby horse to reinforce the hypocrisy of the moronajority.

BH

were pussies, who caved in as soon as they saw the German army, I like to counter with some bits of historic facts:

How France saved the United States in the revolutionary wars, by fighting against the British forces. How France were one of the few armies that managed to push Russian forces back to Moscow. How France lost great numbers of men during both WW1 & WW2. How the French resistance helped the Allied forces in the leadup to D-Day. Etc Etc Etc.

And best of all: How pouring Red Wine into the sewers to protest their foreign policies will only help France, since France earned the revenue when the bottle was sold. And who would think some trailer trash type would actually buy the red wine anyway :-D

... says it all: Verdun.

I went all over the historical map in the discussion with the fundies -- the inability of France, or basically any nation at peace in the 1930s, to move from peacetime posture to a full blown invasion of Germany during the one month of the Polish campaign, the French resistance, the performance of II Corps and the 1re Armée in 43-45, etc.

But again, none of the Fundie BS is about learning what really happened; they have preconceived notions, and lies, propaganda, and hypocrisy are acceptable tools for them. And unfortunately, they are the reigning mentality now.

Vive La France

BH

For a while, one of their two Washington flights were constantly cancelled due to security fears. No rumors or anything was released to support it, which made some people think it was only done to prop up United's flights. At one point, BA had enough of it, changed the flightnumber and resumed the flights.

and the lack of communication between France and the U.S.

http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=41507


French nation is U.S. enemy?
Most Americans have bad opinion of country, almost 1/3 say it's threat
Posted: November 18, 2004
1:00 a.m. Eastern

A new poll reveals most Americans do not hold the nation of France in high regard, with almost a third believing the European country is an enemy of the U.S. in the war on terror.

According to the survey by Rasmussen Reports, 57 percent of American voters have an unfavorable view of France, with 31 percent calling Jacques Chirac's country an enemy. A plurality – 43 percent – believe France's role is somewhere in between ally and enemy.


City of Paris has suffered drop in tourism due to Americans' attitudes

When presidential politics were taken into account, the poll shows by a 77-to-11 percent margin, those who voted for President Bush have an unfavorable opinion of France. Kerry voters are more evenly divided – 42 percent of Kerry voters have a favorable opinion of that nation, 35 percent unfavorable. In addition, 43 percent of Bush voters called France the enemy, while only 17 percent of Kerry supporters shared that view.

The numbers stand in stark contrast to feelings about Great Britain. Seventy-eight percent of Americans have a favorable opinion of Tony Blair's country while only 9 percent hold an unfavorable view. More than four out of five Americans – 83 percent – view the UK as an ally in the war on terror.

Rasmussen says Germany, Russia, and the United Nations fall in between the extremes. Forty-four percent of Americans have a favorable opinion of the U.N. while 42 percent have an unfavorable view. Thirty-three percent believe the U.N. is our ally in the terror war, and 17 percent see it as our enemy.

Again, there's a big difference between Bush and Kerry backers, as 64 percent of Bush supporters have an unfavorable view of the U.N., while 68 percent of Kerry fans hold a positive view of the global body.

Forty percent of voters have a favorable opinion of Germany, while 34 percent have an unfavorable view. For Russia, the numbers are 33 percent favorable and 38 percent unfavorable.

BOYCOTT France (stop the spin?) sticker on their beat-up minivan.

I shook my head in disbelief.

That f*ck-wit sells them on his show.

Also has two of those ridiculous "Presidential Prayer Team" stickers on the car, along with, even more disturbingly, a University of Pittsburgh School of Law sticker (I'm a 3L there). EGAD!!

Most of them will one day wake up and realize WTF they've done.

Just like the German people eventually woke up.

...yet fear you give them too much credit.

What will it take to get the "51%ers" to get their heads out of the sand?

and even then many Germans still longed for the old days of the 3rd Reich.

Not a slam on Germans, but if it takes that much for some in an intelligent nation to realize their ghastly error, what would it take for the United States of Sheep?

There are even a few Japanese who long for the days of the empire, and they sometimes drive around town in big black trucks blaring old war songs over loudspeakers. Fortunately, they're in a very distinct minority

...but for decades afterwards (and, to some degree, up to this present day) all German citizens, without exception, were considered to be guilty of serving as willing accomplices to Hitler and his genocidal Reich.

The phrase "good German," used frequently in the '60s and '70s, was at its heart scornful. While, on the surface, it seemed to single out individuals who hadn't gone along with the Nazis, the subtext was that such a label was a self-serving fiction...that there really were no "good" Germans, just (alongside the unrepentant Nazis) former Nazis who were now trying to pretend that they weren't a part of what happened, but who were fooling nobody.

If one wasn't willing to go that far in identifying all Germans as Nazis, the "good German" label had another subtext, no less deserving of contempt -- that of those individuals who, while genuine opponents of Nazism, were either too weak or too cowardly to do anything to stop it, and merely "went along," albeit unwillingly.

Don't be at all surprised if, when the Bush nightmare finally ends, those of us in the 48% are going to have to live the consequences of being similarly pigeonholed as the "good Americans," with the same tone of scorn, for the rest of our lives.

:-(

In the years to come, we will all bear the consequences for what is going on now.

I used to wonder how the German people had come to such a state. Apparently, their "national condition" of the 1930s wasn't in any way unique.

I suppose we could say, with very bitter irony,

"Gott mit Uns" (whether we like it or not)

BH

is analogous to Nazi Germany...Virtually half of us voted against
The Moron..and we get credit for that*..People who have been through bad regimes like the Vichy Government and the Nazi regime understand that good people are sometimes just up against it...

*..Sorryeverybody.com website

The one individual that was the reason that the plane was diverted in the first place was found to be traveling on an expired passport," Morrissey said. "For that reason we deemed him inadmissible."


The two men were held overnight in Bangor, Maine, and were being taken to Massachusetts to be put on a flight back to Paris, Morrissey said. He said he could not identify the two men by name or nationality.


http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=1895&ncid=1895&e=5&u=/nm/20041121/us_nm/security_plane_dc

So the US custom service has a list of all expired passports, and they go on the "no-fly list"? yeah right.

all sanity? How about an overdue library book, Mr. Ridge? Idiots.

Every time I've traveled overseas, someone, either from Immigration or the airlane, always checks my passport to make sure it's valid.

suit jacket?