AirTran 297- Anatomy of an Urban Legend

[meegbear]

BREAKING NEWS UPDATE

After conducting additional research into this situation, we have verified, according to flight manifests (legally binding documents) that the individual that allegedly created a first-hand account of events on-board AirTran Airways flight 297, a Theodore Petruna, was never actually on-board the flight.

According to all available records, Mr. Petruna’s trip originated from Akron-Canton, Ohio (CAK) on AirTran flight 205. This flight arrived at the gate in Atlanta at 5:06 p.m. Eastern Standard Time. Flight 297, the flight which Mr. Petruna allegedly wrote a first-hand account of, originally pushed back from its gate in Atlanta at 4:40 p.m. EST, a full 26 minutes before flight 205 arrived at the gate in Atlanta making this flight connection impossible.

While Mr. Petruna was originally scheduled to begin his journey on AirTran flight 202 from CAK and connect to flight 297 in Atlanta he did not make that original flight.

On November 17, 2009, AirTran flight 297 was scheduled to travel from Atlanta to Houston-Hobby. During taxi a passenger was non-compliant with Crew Members, using a cell phone and taking pictures. The flight taxied back to the gate and the passenger, who did not speak English, and his companion acting as his interpreter were asked to de-plane. They were met by customer service personnel and TSA.

The passengers were allowed to re-board and continued on the flight after speaking with AirTran and TSA representatives. The flight was delayed by more than two hours.

Since the flight and initial media reports, several blogs and Internet sites have recounted the incident as portrayed by a passenger originally scheduled for the flight. Below is that passenger’s account (unedited in any way including spelling and grammar), as reported on several blogs. Highlighted between the passenger’s account, are the factually accurate circumstances surrounding this incident.

We bring this to your attention in order to dispel myths that are beginning to make the rounds in chat rooms, blogs and conspiracy theorists’ Web sites.

<snip>

The link below has the email that has been circulating and the airline itself disproving each section. Must suck when FACTS get in the way.

http://www.insideairtran.com/?p=2200

[Ian David]

1. I rescued The Heart of The Sea from The Titanic when it sank! n/t

[Blue_Tires]

2. major kick

someone should really track down our star author and make him account for this....

[JimRob_is_a_douche]

3. Typical conservative douchebags...

...always trying to create trouble where it would otherwise not exist.

[bahrbearian]

4. Book marked

[sharp_stick]

5. The RW contribution to the Internet

is simply the manifestation and propagation of idiotic chain letters that keep snopes and fact check in business.

If I had a nickle for every idiotic RW and racist chain message I got from some members of my family I could retire. I should have the statement "Snopes is your friend" on a macro to save myself some time in my reply-all's. I do have snopes on a bookmark to make it easy to get to.

[regnaD kciN]

6. O.K., I don't get this...

They start off by saying that the person who "wrote" this account wasn't even on the flight. But, they then go to a point-by-point rebuttal of the charges that, indeed, indicates that a group of 13 passengers was taken off the aircraft for questioning (and was later allowed to return), that the crew did leave the aircraft and was replaced by another crew (which might only mean that the delay pushed the first crew over their allowed working hours for the day), and that a number of passengers did refuse to continue on the flight after the 13 were allowed to continue. So, in other words, the e-mail does appear to be a heavily-spun and exaggerated account of a real incident on that flight. Now, we're being told that the "author" wasn't even on the flight? So, if he actually wrote it, how did he find out about the incident enough to create such an account, (loosely) based as it was on a real incident? And , if the incident (sort of) really happened, does it matter in the grand scheme of things whether the person identified as the author was or was not on the aircraft? If the account had been written by "anonymous," would that have made a difference?

Obviously, something happened on that flight, although not the confrontation between Freedom-Loving Americans and Eeeeeevil Muuuuuuslim Terraists presented by the e-mail. Why should the identity of the author figure into this?