A Near Miss?

By now, the whole world knows of the failed attempt to bring down a NWA jet on its way to Detroit (DTW) from Amsterdam on Christmas Day. As luck would have it, one week later, on New Years Day, Donn and I were flying out of DTW, with Piper, on our trip to Denver and then on to Nebraska where Piper makes her home with our daughter, Tara, her husband and their 2 month old son, Sage.



That being said, I'm not a good traveler. I don't like placing my life or the lives of my loved ones in the hands of the flight crew. I know they are seasoned professionals and want to end each flight knowing they brought their passengers and fellow crew members safely to their destinations. But now, we have an additional monkey wrench in the plans, with the threat of people getting on plans who have other intentions. Their goal has nothing to do with landing safely, let alone landing at all. You can bet my "radar" was on full alert as we waited 2 hours at our gate for boarding. I was OK; feeling the TSA had done their job pretty well, when he came in to our area and sat down directly across from Donn, Piper and I.



I would be the last one to profile a person, based on their appearance and native language. I'm 1/2 Syrian and 1/2 Native American and, appearance-wise, could pass for any nationality where dark hair, dark eyes, and olive complexion is the norm. With that in mind, when this young man in his mid-20's, with the features I described for myself sat across from us, why did I get a sudden chill and become fearful. Paranoia, hysteria, or were my instincts on alert and I sensed something wasn't right? After an hour of observing his sullen expressions, overhearing his end of several cell phone conversations in a dialect from the Middle East, and noting that he never looked anyone in the eye, I opted to trust my instincts to watch his every move. Keep in mind that New Years Day is a day of Bowl Games. The televisions in the boarding areas were all on and most everyone was paying some kind of attention to the game results as they came in. Not this young man. The only time his head turned to watch TV was during the news breaks, which were focusing on the failed Christmas Day attack over Detroit. He watched every single news break that dealt with terrorism, Al Quaeda, the alleged DTW bomber, and, when those reports ended, went back to keeping his head down and taking phone calls. Now, I was scared.



As I was taking Piper for a walk to stretch her legs before we boarded our plane, the Detroit City Police bike patrol went through our area. I thought great, they'll certainly see this guy and stop for a chat. When that didn't happen, I seriously thought about stopping them and asking them to swing through our boarding area and "check him out". But I didn't do that and do you know why? Because I didn't want to profile him. Perhaps put an innocent young man through undue scrutiny just because I felt he was a suspicious person. After all, when my son, Troy, chooses to fly unshaven with a cap pulled over his dark hair, he could be profiled simply based on his appearance. I also took heart in the fact that there was a plane boarding in the area right next to us, headed for New York City and, if this person was a terrorist with the intent of doing harm, he'd make more of an impact if it happened somewhere between Detroit and New York, than from Detroit to Denver. Not that I wished harm on the NY passengers but it isn't called survival of the fittest for nothing! I just didn't want him on our plane.



Guess what, he didn't get on the plane bound for New York. Rats, he got on our plane. Yikes. Then it occurred to me that we were in row 19, the row the alleged terrorist sat in on Christmas Day. I was quickly running out of happy thoughts. I said more Hail Mary's during that flight than I ever have and, as we approached our final descent into Denver, figured we'd made it safely and began to breath a sigh of relief. I went about the business of helping Piper gather up her books and things so that when it came time to disembark the plane, we'd have left nothing behind, except my paranoia and fear of flying. I never witnessed what followed.



Donn, of course, knew of my fears and suspicions and, as always, he's my rock. He would be the passenger who would throw himself on a bomb if it meant saving not just my life, but the life of anyone on the plane. So, it wasn't until after we got off the plane, walking through the terminal, when Donn said "you know that young guy who made you nervous? Did you know he was sitting right behind you?" "No", I said. He had my attention, now. Then Donn says, "then you didn't see what he did as we were in our final approach to Denver?" I just looked at Donn and asked about what I'd missed. After the pilot announced that all passengers remain buckled in their seats for the final approach; that the flight crew should prepare for landing, the young man got out of his seat, walked up to the front of the plane, stopped, and then turned back and returned to his seat. A chill ran through me. The same one I got when I first saw the young man who sat across from me in the boarding area. Were my instincts right? Did he intend to do harm but thought better of it? Was carrying out his plan on a plane full of families with young children, traveling to their homes, too much for his conscience to bear? Is that why he stopped near the front of the plane, turned around and went back to his seat? Was that our near miss?