The Hindu : Military jets escort plane after alarm

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Thursday, Jul 18, 2002

International

International

Military jets escort plane after alarm

NEW YORK JULY 17. Military jets escorted a plane to the LaGuardia Airport in New York after a passenger raised an alarm on seeing some persons on board passing notes, officials said.

About 15 minutes before the American TransAir Flight 204 was due to arrive at LaGuardia from Chicago on Tuesday night, a passenger told a flight attendant that seven other passengers — all from India — were engaged in ``suspicious activity,'' passing notes to each other and changing seats, Port Authority of New York and New Jersey spokesperson, Alan Hicks, said on Wednesday.

The flight attendant notified the pilot who alerted the federal aviation authorities.

Two F-16 fighter jets escorted the plane — a Boeing 757 with 98 passengers plus a crew — to the ground, said Barry Venable, a spokesperson for the North American Aerospace Defence Command, or NORAD. The plane landed five minutes late and no one was hurt.

The seven Indians were released early on Wednesday after being questioned, the Port Authority officials said. They belonged to a well-known performance group and had been rehearsing or discussing a performance when they attracted suspicion, their New York host, Chiru Vijanam, told WNBC-TV. Since September 11, NORAD has scrambled fighters or diverted them from other missions more than 400 times to assist civilian aviation authorities, Maj. Venable said. — AP

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