British Flight Called Off After Warnings (friday's cancelled flights

[velocity]

http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Britain-Flight-Canceled.html

British Flight Called Off After Warnings
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

Published: January 2, 2004


Filed at 8:40 a.m. ET

LONDON (AP) -- British Airways canceled a flight from Heathrow Airport to Washington on Friday, the third time in three days that the flight was disrupted on security advice from the British government, an airline spokesman said.

Friday's cancellation came amid a tightening of the security net over U.S. airspace around the New Year's holiday, a week and a half after the Bush administration raised the national terrorism alert to orange, its second-highest level.

Flight BA 223, one of three daily flights to the U.S. capital, was also canceled Thursday on government advice. Another British Airways flight from Washington to London was delayed Thursday night as U.S. authorities re-screened passengers. The flight took off more than three hours late.

On Wednesday, Flight 223 was kept on the taxiway at Washington Dulles International Airport for several hours shortly after landing, while U.S. authorities questioned passengers and crew on board

<<<<cut boring>>>>>

[tsipple]

1. Brings New Meaning to the Phrase...

..."Time to Spare? Go by Air."

[rjbcar27]

2. Absolutely ri-goddamn-diculous.

:eyes:

[Shadder]

3. What?

More kids to interview? How long before they come out and say "Oops, Gee we are so sorry but it was all in error. Our bad."?

[Walt Starr]

4. Damn, the terrorists are terrorizing with "chatter"

They don't have to lift a finger, just "chatter" and they disrupt international business and terrorize.

I think the terrorists have achieved their goals, at least their short term goals.

[Maeve]

5. Beat me to it, Walt!

I've been saying this for some time, now. Terrorists can win by speaking LOUDY and carrying a tiny stick.

[DoYouEverWonder]

6. But who is creating the chatter?

Is it really a bunch of Arabs sitting in a cave without electric or are they our own homegrown terrorist 'experts' with a high speed connection, who make these threats up and plant them all over the Internet? There are a couple of extremest right wing sights such as Free Republic and Bush Country that are hotbeds for this stuff.

This is the new face of terrorism:

[SheilaT]

7. In my opinion all of this is to get

passengers to acquiesce to having personal information readily available to authorities, and putting up with entire categories of passengers being told they can't fly.

We are already living in a police state. It just hasn't been ratcheted up far enough yet for most people to notice.

[frylock]

8. payback time for BA refusing to play along with the thanksgiving..

day "alleged" sighting of AF-1?