Little Green Footballs reports:
US Bars KLM Flight from Airspace
A KLM plane from Amsterdam to Mexico was refused access to US airspace today and had to turn back, because it was carrying two passengers who were on a terrorist watch list.
Flight 685 from Amsterdam to Mexico City was denied permission to fly south across the Canada-U.S. border on Friday because the names of two passengers aboard were included on a U.S. “no-fly” terrorist watch list, KLM spokesman Bart Koster said.
The flight, carrying 278 passengers, returned to Amsterdam, Koster said. He told The Associated Press that on Saturday, a flight without the two listed passengers departed Amsterdam and arrived in Mexico City.
“I hope this was a once-in-a-lifetime incident,” Koster said. “It’s, of course, very frustrating for passengers and crew to be more than 10, 11 hours in the air, to come back where you departed.”
The Department of Homeland Security and the FBI decided to bar the flight because of security concerns involving certain passengers, said Transportation Security Administration spokeswoman Andrea McCauley. She would not elaborate.
UPDATE at 4/10/05 4:32:49 pm:
And when the plane got back to the Netherlands, Dutch authorities let the two passengers walk away.
The suspected passengers were not arrested on their return to the Netherlands because Dutch authorities saw no reason to detain them, the ANP news agency reported. [link]
posted by: jrtelegraph
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