Nigerian Man attempts to blow up Plane
 

I'm surprised no one has posted about this yet. A Nigerian man who boarded a connecting flight in Amsterdam to Detroit on Christmas day attempted to blow up the plane 20 minutes prior to landing. Thank GOD he failed. I tried looking up flight patterns to see where exactly the plane was at that time. Being so close to the airport, I'm really curious.

I hope this doesn't sound creepy, but I honest to goodness thought about you when I heard about this story. Not that Nigerian terrorists remind me of you, but that you live in that general vicinity.

Oh, I was hoping that Nigerian terrorists made you think of me! ;) AGDee is in my area too. It's so freaky. Someone said that since it was 20 minutes away from landing, it could have been in Canada or Ohio. I'm assuming not Canada since his alleged target was the US.

There was some discussion of it in the Random or What do you feel like saying right now thread at the time. I think they were far enough out that they weren't actually over Michigan at the time. They were possibly over Lake Erie even?

Then yesterday they had another scare on the same exact flight, but it turned out the guy was genuinely ill.

The second incident got me wondering about language barriers during international flights. Just because the pilot and crew are telling someone they have to stay seated for the last hour of the flight, doesn't mean the person understands what they are saying. What a mess.

The original guy was on a terror watch list yet he was able to fly here? But you hear all kinds of stories of mistaken identity putting people on the No Fly list (like Ted Kennedy at one point).

Bottom line: No security is fool proof.

Maybe this guy was mad because I didn't send him his money from the Euro Lottery? :D

SHUT UP!!!!! LMAOOOOOOOOOOOOO

It was missed because this story was soooo much bigger than crazy Nigerian extremists. ;):D

I'm gonna tease all my Nigerian friends today....I bet they are sooooo embarrassed about this! Every Nigerian person I know is so proud to be Nigerian that I know this guy is such a smear on their country.

*giggle*
but in all seriousness, I was glad to hear of how the other passengers helped subdue this guy.

That's probably not such a wise idea...

Nigerians that I've met are more ethnocentric than they are nationalist. If I told this story to my Yoruba friend, he'd probably say "I bet it was a fucking Igbo."

Oh, you may be right, Senusret, but I'm still gonna do it...my friend Tay and I can joke around like that...

The Nigerian profiling has begun..."Meanwhile Sunday, another Northwest plane on the same route and with the same flight number was met by police at the Detroit airport after the crew raised an alert over a passenger who "spent a lengthy time in the restroom," said Sandra Berchtold, a spokeswoman for the Joint Terrorism Task Force.
The second incident turned out to be unrelated to terrorism, officials said, attributing the passenger's prolonged time in the restroom to "sickness."
That passenger was released from custody and allowed to take a connecting flight."
http://www.cnn.com/2009/CRIME/12/28/...mpt/index.html

Poor guy has some GI distress, and he makes the national news!

I talked to one of my partners today who is Nigerian. He laughed when I asked him about it and said, "Don't you start!" His comment was that this kind of behavior is out of character for Nigerians who are "fun loving and jolly!"

wow that sucks. You catch the runs and get questioned
for it.

It wasn't Nigerian profiling. A man put together an explosive device in a bathroom before landing. They made a rule now that you cannot get up or go to the bathroom an hour before landing. This man was insistant on going to the bathroom and was there for a long time. If I had been on that plane, and it were ANY passenger acting like that, I'd be pretty scared especially since the other incident was the day before. Poor guy only had to shit but it's better to be cautious and safe than sorry.