Airline wins suit brought by Iraqis

[Uncle Fester]

Seriously, nik - part of being a member of this company (talking about the USN here) is knowing what point of an argument to shut up and go sit by your bowl. Especially with dudes who have seniority and experience. "Right," "wrong," or "what you're trying to say" got fuck-all to do with it.

It's a lesson we all learn at some point...in my case, via a one-way flame-spraying from the XO.

WRT the original topic...right and wrong, fair or not, got nothing to do with it either. It's a point of law. The standard for discriminationatory behavior in law and in precedence is pretty clearly laid out, and the plaintiffs pretty clearly didn't make their case.

The suit wasn't about what 'other passengers' thought. The passenger who got nervous and deboarded wasn't a party in the suit; neither was the LT who got suspicious of his seatmate. This was about the decision that the Captain made and whether, given the information he had at the time, it was a reasonable decision to make.

The plaintiffs suffered nothing worse than inconvenience (same inconvenience as all the other passengers) and hurt feelings. There was no legal basis for their suit. Period.

 

[wink]

Hell yeah it does. I had that happen the other day.

You piss off A4s the other day, did ya?

I did read the whole report. Did you? This is what I'm talking about:

"Prior to boarding the flight, a passenger on the flight, while still at the gate spoke to one of Defendant’s customer service managers, Anne Grove, and to the police, to express her concern about four men, identified as Middle Eastern, who appeared to be acting suspiciously. (Pls.’ Resp. Ex. B,
Grove Report; Ex. C, Grove Dep. 33-34). Grove and the police officers spoke to the passenger, who complained that the men were speaking to each other in their native language. (Grove Report). The police officers told the passenger that they had no reason to question or detain the men, as they had cleared security without incident and were not displaying any cause for intervention. (Id.) Grove reported that everything appeared normal to her, and no other passengers complained."

I'm not talking about what the rest of the people did. I'm talking about this woman and what she complained about.

Just to add to A4s clarification of the incident and subsequent lawsuit, the actions taken by the Captain were not based on the woman worried about men speaking Arabic, they were based on very very suspicious behavior on the plane. I am very tempted to offer specifics, but will not for the same reasons A4s did not. At least two things those guys did are major red flags aircrew are trained to look for based on past terrorist behavior and interrogations of captured terrorists (and I am sure they knew it based on the work they do for DOD). Please just take my word for it. The nervous lady at the gate had nothing to do with the Captain's decision. Remember, he asked the FAs if they were ok to depart the gate and they said OK. It was only after the subsequent behavior was observed on the taxi out did they get concerned.

 

[hokieav8r]

verbage, yet again

So by that logic, we should only be concerned about people who appear to be of Middle Eastern descent committing acts of terrorism... that doesn't seem very smart. I'm not saying we shouldn't be vigilant, but there's a difference between vigilance and outright discrimination.

When describing what you saw/heard in order to determine what led you to make your risk decision to return to the terminal, in order to have the proper officials make the actual determination and deal with the possible threat to security and safety, you simply say, "suspicious activity by the subject, or individual or individuals!" Problem solved. Yeah, no shit they were middle eastern looking, that does not need to be the leading or any reason to make a decision to address a possible breach that needs to be dealt with. Articulation can change everything. Who gives a shit what their skin tone, eye color, hair style or head dress was?! They were acting suspiciously enough to make someone uncomfortable enough to say something. I'm sure, coming from a military location, as knuckle draggin meat eaters, there was a little mission creep in their activity as they communicated with each other while on a commercial flight. I've seen many other soldiers that are seated 7-10 seats away from each other, all going home from OCONUS, yelling and screaming at each other with certain profanities, inside jokes and enjoying themselves, for 24-48 hours before they were walking the streets of some unfair, third world city. While I dismiss this conduct and activity because they are the very people you want on your side, should something go wrong on the plane, it does visibly and clearly bother the other passengers on board who don't see this type of activity in their daily travels.

Just remember one thing, describe the activity not the person for your decision point. Problem solved.

Clearly, that is what happened because of the final ruling. A4s, correct, nobody knows, they were trying to play it in their favor and tried to exploit something. I certainly hope the decision holds. There is a lot riding on the ability to make a split risk decision and if this becomes an actual court ruling, it will certainly hamstring the industry and their abilities to sincerely do their job.

 

[BACONATOR]

Honestly, the middle-eastern origin of the group is just icing on the cake. I'd expect similar results for ANY group of people acting in such a suspicious way. Shit, if I started lying about traveling alone when I was clearly in a group, looked nervous and sweaty, threw a blanket over my head, went to the head before we even taxied out and was staring down FAs, I wouldn't be surprised at all if I ended up eating pavement with a 300lb cop's knee of the back of my neck.

 

[A4sForever]

Shortly after 9/11 and continuing afterward ... we carried a LOT of boys back & forth from a large CONUS military base to several points of 'interest' in the Pacific Rim ...

I took a lot of them over, and saw several on their return trip to the Land of the Great PX. In any case, it wouldn't have taken a rocket scientist to ID them based on their general appearance: fit, 20-30'ish, hair high & tight, 'tanned and rested' ... so in the interest of mutual support -- I'd usually grab the senior member of the group and ask him if I could use his people as my in-flight security detail ... of course, I would need to brief w/ them on some specifics and I'd probably have to move 'em all up to at least Business Class, as that's the area where I wanted the 'wire' put up if the shit went down ...

I'd say ... probably 99 44/100% of the time, the group's collective eyes lit up, and they enthusiastically became my front line of defense outside of the cockpit door ...

Bonus: they also got a nice(er) ride back to CONUS ... :icon_wink