I'm am relieved to hear that reports of Syrian musicians being kidnapped while on tour in the US and a video of kidnappers threatening to behead them were not true. Sanity is alive and well in this part of the world.

"The Wayne Newton of Syria"!?! - man, I think I preferred it when they just sent terrorists.

An explanation that I haven't seen suggested: revenge for this.

Hey, A.L.! Some of us got Buckaroo Banzai the first time! That and Neuromancer were required reading where I was an undergraduate!

"No matter where you go, there you are."
:-)

Dave Schuler: LMAO! :)

I agree with Michelle that it's still better to be safe than sorry. Jacobsen's story has brought out anecdotes about other airplane events that don't have such innocent explanations, and highlighted the need for improved airline security and passenger vigilance.

Oh, I am beginning to understand: being band members of Syrian origin rules out any possibility that these chaps could also be terrorists.

A band would be a good cover, these are no Eric Claptons, If they did get control of an aircraft there musical skills wouldn't be an issue.
Further do you think there was an F16 alittle below and a little behind that flight?

A band would be a good cover, these are no Eric Claptons, If they did get control of an aircraft there musical skills wouldn't be an issue.
Further do you think there was an F16 alittle below and a little behind that flight?

Harry and others:

Riddle me this. Even assuming they got control of the cabin (which I think is unlikely as a) the passengers aren't got to stand for it; and b) the linear nature of the space largely neutralizes the advantage of a trained group over a mob), so what? No pilot is going to open the cabin door, and a couple of 90-degree rolls or .5 G sine-waves and the attackers are on the aisle.

Now personally, I'm offended that this Administration hasn't aggressively armed pilots. That, to me would be a sing of seriousness.

But until someone can give me a plausible explanation of what the point is of having a group of unarmed thugs in the passenger cabin, I'm going to have a hard time figuring out the threat.

If you want to blow the plane up, two or three passengers or one plus a groundcrew member would be more than enough, and they won't act odd at all; they'll go out of their way not to attract attention until the bomb goes off - otherwise a passenger might interfere.

A.L.

"Being safer than sorry" can be dangerous in its own right, if the accuser is hyperventilating. Note today's SF Chronicle, where a high school student did 120 days in the slammer for writing a poem.

I should note that July 22 is the anniversary of the Preparedness Day Parade bombing San Francisco (1916). (10 dead, over 50 injured, a pretty big incident for its day). Similar to day's atmosphere of terrorism and wartime jitters, and worth mentioning in this context because those jitters allowed an unscrupulous DA to prosecute two innocent men -- Tom Mooney and Warren Billings. People were too busy hyperventilating to take a critical look at the DA's framing evidence and trying the case in the press, so Mooney and Billings didn't come out till 1941. (And this trial was even before the Espionage Act of 1918 put people in Federal prison simply on the basis of wartime speech).

Doesn't serve national security if you lock up the wrong suspects. PS -- to this day no one knows who did the Preparedness Day bombing, only that Mooney and Billings did not.

Has anyone considered that "THEY" know 2 or 3 terrorists could/would be overpowered by passengers, and this group was testing the waters to see what reaction they would get from passengers, crew, FAMs in the face of a large number of obviously ME men on a flight?

If that were the case here, I guess they got the answer they hoped for - absolutely nothing!

Hopefully you are right and they can't succede, but they will try , of that we should have no dought!

Hopefully you are right and they can't succede, but they will try , of that we should have no doubt!