It started as a routine flight from Detroit to LA. But what followed would plunge the US into another 9/11 panic

When one woman posted a website account of her fears on a flight with a group of Arab men, a spate of tales about lax security followed. Paul Harris reports
A simple, if frightening, account on an obscure American website of a plane flight has become something else in the paranoid world of post-9/11 air travel. Annie Jacobsen's tale of flying to Los Angeles with 14 'Middle Eastern-looking' men quickly generated a storm of controversy.

It prompted airline whistleblowers to come forward with lurid tales of lapses in security against terrorists. It threw a spotlight on rumours and warnings of terrorists carrying out 'dry runs' for future hijackings.

But it also revealed an unpleasant underbelly of fear and loathing among ordinary passengers terrified of seeing a dark-skinned male face board their plane. It showed a world in which passengers saw terrorists around every corner and an innocent band of Arab musicians going to play a gig were mistaken for suicidal jihadis intent on mayhem.

For Jacobsen, a writer for a finance and lifestyle website, the sight of six Middle Eastern-appearing men waiting for her Northwest Airlines Flight 327 from Detroit to Los Angeles was not an initial source of concern.

But when the men boarded, she noticed eight others were also getting on. It is then that Jacobsen's controversial account takes on the tone of a cheap airport thriller. Jacobsen noticed that, although seated in different places, all the men knew each other. 'We watched as, one by one, most of the Middle Eastern men made eye contact with each other. They con tinued to look at each other and nod, as if they were all in agreement about something,' she wrote.

Things soon went from bad to worse. Jacobsen described how the men began making frequent trips to the lavatory. One took a paper bag inside and then emerged without it. The men would congregate in groups. One man, in a dark suit and wearing sunglasses, was seated in first class in the seat closest to the cockpit door.

Jacobsen said she smiled at one of the men, whom she had exchanged pleasantries with while boarding. 'The man did not smile back. In fact, the cold, defiant look he gave me sent shivers down my spine,' she said.


Just as the plane was cleared to land, seven of the men jumped up to go to the lavatory at the same time. One female passenger began to cry as the men entered the toilet one by one. In Jacobsen's own words: 'The last man came out of the bathroom, and as he passed ... he ran his forefinger across his neck and mouthed the word "No".'

The plane then landed safely. As relieved passengers disembarked the 14 men were shuffled over to one side where they were taken away for questioning by airport authorities and the police. Jacobsen went to the FBI. They interviewed her at length. She later found out that the men had claimed to be musicians. That should have been that.

But Jacobsen's account went further. She mentioned reports she had read, including in The Observer, that detailed the threat from al-Qaeda operatives conducting 'dry runs' to assemble bombs by placing their components on planes separately.

'Do I think these men were musicians? I'll let you decide,' Jacobsen's story concluded. 'But I wonder, if 19 terrorists can learn to fly airplanes into buildings, couldn't 14 terrorists learn to play instruments?'

Jacobsen's account was an instant hit. her magazine website,, was soon getting 100 times its normal amount of hits. The story spread rapidly and pilots, air stewards and air marshals began contacting her.

They told of terrorist hit squads testing the airline's security system. 'The terrorists are probing us all the time,' said Gary Boettcher, a director at the Allied Pilots Association. An American Airlines pilot, Mark Bogosian, said terrorist dry runs were the 'dirty little secret' of the industry. Many painted a picture of a security system incapable of spotting potential terrorists. Details of other 'dry runs' emerged, including one on a flight to New York in February that prompted an FBI probe.

But there was one problem in Jacobsen's account. The 14 men claiming to be musicians were, in fact, exactly that. Nour Mehana, a well-known Syrian singer, had been travelling on the plane along with his entire backing band.

James Cullen of Athem Artists confirmed that Mehana and the band were on the same flight as Jacobsen. The band went on to play a gig on the outskirts of San Diego.

Mehana, who plays a mix of traditional and modern Arab music, is well known in the Middle East. It is likely that he was the man Jacobsen saw sitting in first class wearing sunglasses. Jacobsen says she does not recognise Mehana or any of the band members.

The whole incident has outraged many Arab and American civil rights groups. 'It is judging someone by their skin colour or their religion. It has become par for the course in the post-9/11 era,' said Ibrahim Hooper, a director at the Council on American-Islamic Relations.

The furore comes at a time when the FBI has launched an operation to interview hundreds of Muslims and Arabs in America as part of an attempt to discover a possible terrorist attack. However, some civil rights groups say the move stigmatises all Muslims.

Critics have accused Jacobsen of creating a drama out of what turned out to be an uneventful flight in the company of a well-known Syrian band, some of whom go to the toilet a lot. Patrick Smith, a well-known columnist on aviation said her piece was 'spring-loaded with mindless hysterics and bigoted provocation' and accused her of paranoia.
