Clearly I'm not afraid enough. I get on planes all the time without a second thought. Sometimes I even share planes with suspicious people: vaguely ethnic-looking men travelling by themselves, hippies with dreadlocks, people who mutter to themselves. Not once have I ever seen anything that made me want to ask that they put the plane back on the ground. Am I just not paranoid enough? I have a hard time understanding the level of panic that could lead to this:
http://www.belleville.com/mld/bellev...l/11493732.htm
Quote:
MP3 player, herbal remedies lead to emergency landing at O'Hare
Associated Press
CHICAGO - An airline passenger's MP3 player and three vials harmless herbal remedies led to an emergency landing at O'Hare International Airport, the evacuation of 74 passengers and crew and a search of the plane Tuesday by the Chicago Police bomb squad.
The United Airlines flight was headed from New York to San Francisco when a passenger told a flight attendant he saw another passenger with suspicious materials, United spokesman Jeff Green said.
The flight crew looked at the materials, and the pilot decided to land at O'Hare. The 66 passengers and eight crew members were evacuated while the bomb squad inspected the materials and the plane, Green said.
The material turned out to be wires, an MP3 player and homeopathic medicines, said Transportation Security Administration spokeswoman Ann Davis.
"It was nothing detrimental," said Chicago Police spokesman John Mirabelli. He said the three vials contained herbal liquids.
The passenger who brought the items was cleared to reboard the flight, which continued its flight to San Francisco after about three hours at O'Hare, Green said.
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Y'know, better safe than sorry, I guess, but this just seems excessive and beyond the realm of common sense. Just points out how completely phobic we are becoming, when anything or anybody unrecognizable or unfamiliar becomes perceived as a threat.