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Author Topic: Suspect in failed Times Square bombing pulled off UAE202 at JFK  (Read 35917 times)

Offline SkyPie

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Quote from: <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/05/04/AR2010050400192.html">The Washington Post</a>
Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. announced early Tuesday that an arrest had been made in the failed Times Square car bombing, saying that Faisal Shahzad, a 30-year-old American, was taken into custody at John F. Kennedy International Airport as he tried to fly to Dubai on Monday night.

UAE202 (FlightAware) was almost told to position on 22R before they were relayed a message to immediately return to the gate. They were directed to contact Emirates for details and the flight was later rescheduled for a ~1012Z departure.



Offline englishpilot

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Re: Suspect in failed Times Square bombing pulled off UAE202 at JFK
« Reply #1 on: May 04, 2010, 09:14:41 AM »
Thanks for posting: 

Offline athaker

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Re: Suspect in failed Times Square bombing pulled off UAE202 at JFK
« Reply #2 on: May 04, 2010, 10:12:43 AM »
Nice job NYPD and Feds!  Talk about last possible moment...
« Last Edit: May 05, 2010, 02:16:46 AM by athaker »

Offline rekno13

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Re: Suspect in failed Times Square bombing pulled off UAE202 at JFK
« Reply #3 on: May 04, 2010, 01:16:48 PM »
That feels like a movie moment. Glad they caught him.
Detailed article from NYtimes: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/05/nyregion/05bomb.html?hp
« Last Edit: May 04, 2010, 01:24:01 PM by rekno13 »

Offline rationaljeff

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Re: Suspect in failed Times Square bombing pulled off UAE202 at JFK
« Reply #4 on: May 04, 2010, 02:19:35 PM »
Funny I should check the forum first. Spent a half hour researching the Emirates flight schedule out of JFK and then went to the archives and pieced the same clip together you did. Pretty amazing the controller was in mid sentence to position and hold on 22R when she got the message.

Offline glencar

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Re: Suspect in failed Times Square bombing pulled off UAE202 at JFK
« Reply #5 on: May 04, 2010, 05:52:05 PM »
I worked last night & wondered why this plane was delayed 6 or 7 hours.

Offline cptbrw

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Re: Suspect in failed Times Square bombing pulled off UAE202 at JFK
« Reply #6 on: May 04, 2010, 06:07:46 PM »
Great that they got this guy.  But the question now is how he was able to board the plane after having supposedly been placed on the "no-fly" list several hours before the flight.  Reportedly he made his reservation while on the way to the airport and purchased his ticket with cash at JFK shortly before the flight. 

Offline jaredbelch

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Re: Suspect in failed Times Square bombing pulled off UAE202 at JFK
« Reply #7 on: May 04, 2010, 06:23:52 PM »
Good grab by the authorities.  My guess is that there is a delay from when you are added to the list and when the airline gets that info.  Otherwise yeah they should have nabbed him as soon as he got to the airport.

Offline cptbrw

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Re: Suspect in failed Times Square bombing pulled off UAE202 at JFK
« Reply #8 on: May 04, 2010, 06:42:37 PM »
Actually, as it now appears, his name had been placed on some type of web-based system which the airport personnel failed to check and it's not clear how much responsibility they have to actually check that particular site.  It's also been reported that he was under FBI surveillance but they lost him at some point before he arrived at JFK.

Regardless of the shortcomings, it was still a good job to nab him before he got off the ground and that is certainly the most important part!

Offline picci

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Re: Suspect in failed Times Square bombing pulled off UAE202 at JFK
« Reply #9 on: May 04, 2010, 07:28:20 PM »
cool :)

thanks for posting the clip

Offline iskyfly

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Re: Suspect in failed Times Square bombing pulled off UAE202 at JFK
« Reply #10 on: May 05, 2010, 12:28:34 PM »
Actually, as it now appears, his name had been placed on some type of web-based system which the airport personnel failed to check and it's not clear how much responsibility they have to actually check that particular site.  It's also been reported that he was under FBI surveillance but they lost him at some point before he arrived at JFK.
Not quite.
He was put on the list the same day as the incident. The airlines list arent updated realtime.

Also, there was an AWACS over NY that intercepted his cell phone calls.


Offline iskyfly

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Re: Suspect in failed Times Square bombing pulled off UAE202 at JFK
« Reply #11 on: May 05, 2010, 12:32:42 PM »
A few seconds before the Tower controller clears Emirates onto 22R (and then immediately cancels the clearance), she cleared Delta 1154 for landing on runway 22L. If anyone has a full copy of the tower transmissions including any with DL1154. I'd like to hear them. All the video/audio I've seen is the same 1m27sec clip.

Offline glencar

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Re: Suspect in failed Times Square bombing pulled off UAE202 at JFK
« Reply #12 on: May 05, 2010, 04:40:15 PM »
The reason for that is the 119.1 frequency was stopped as the tower frequency that night. They switched to 123.9.

Offline bulgin

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Re: Suspect in failed Times Square bombing pulled off UAE202 at JFK
« Reply #13 on: May 05, 2010, 05:02:20 PM »
The reason for that is the 119.1 frequency was stopped as the tower frequency that night. They switched to 123.9.

As a pilot is seems a little suspicious to me that the controller issues the command "..runway 22 right taxi position actually I have a message for you to go back to the gate immediately...", all stated in one breath without hesitation.  Normally in air traffic control and ground control communication protocol there would never be a last second interruption in the issuance of a command such as this because, the information needed to "taxi into position and hold" which is what the tower controller was about to say, would have already been "made up" in her mind and she spoke as though someone, last minute, shoved a piece of paper in front of her or that she received some emergency print out over-riding her command.  It just does not happen that way.  And if someone had "flagged her down" there would have been some type of hesitation in her voice, or at the very least, she would have said, "Emerates standby".  I'm presuming the "authorities" intentionally allowed this part of the case to unfold with this drama so as to create the impression that he narrowly escaped and through that drama, change the law regarding notification to airlines, and give some boost to the pressure from the Administration to switch notifications from the Secure Flight program to the TSA.

Offline SirIsaac726

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Re: Suspect in failed Times Square bombing pulled off UAE202 at JFK
« Reply #14 on: May 05, 2010, 05:36:35 PM »
The reason for that is the 119.1 frequency was stopped as the tower frequency that night. They switched to 123.9.

As a pilot is seems a little suspicious to me that the controller issues the command "..runway 22 right taxi position actually I have a message for you to go back to the gate immediately...", all stated in one breath without hesitation.  Normally in air traffic control and ground control communication protocol there would never be a last second interruption in the issuance of a command such as this because, the information needed to "taxi into position and hold" which is what the tower controller was about to say, would have already been "made up" in her mind and she spoke as though someone, last minute, shoved a piece of paper in front of her or that she received some emergency print out over-riding her command.  It just does not happen that way.  And if someone had "flagged her down" there would have been some type of hesitation in her voice, or at the very least, she would have said, "Emerates standby".  I'm presuming the "authorities" intentionally allowed this part of the case to unfold with this drama so as to create the impression that he narrowly escaped and through that drama, change the law regarding notification to airlines, and give some boost to the pressure from the Administration to switch notifications from the Secure Flight program to the TSA.

As much as you say ATC just doesn't work that way, law enforcement doesn't work that way.  They aren't going to narrowly let a plane take off with a suspect in a terror threat just to dramatize the incident.  Heck, if the plane had just pushed from the gate, the news would be reporting it as "SUSPECT NARROWLY ESCAPES" as some outlets may be doing now.  They don't know the difference, nor do they care.  The news is the one to push the dramatization, not law enforcement.

Not trying to be rude but that is just ridiculous.  It could just be that the Tower Sup or whoever got the call and came over to tell the controller.

Regarding the "no-fly list," some radio news outlet near me is reporting that the policy was for the airlines to update their list every 24 hours, which would mean when he was added, the airline checked an outdated list.  That policy has since been changed to 2 hours.  However, I cannot promise how accurate that is.
« Last Edit: May 05, 2010, 05:43:46 PM by SirIsaac726 »

Offline cptbrw

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Re: Suspect in failed Times Square bombing pulled off UAE202 at JFK
« Reply #15 on: May 05, 2010, 06:01:24 PM »
The reason for that is the 119.1 frequency was stopped as the tower frequency that night. They switched to 123.9.

As a pilot is seems a little suspicious to me that the controller issues the command "..runway 22 right taxi position actually I have a message for you to go back to the gate immediately...", all stated in one breath without hesitation.  Normally in air traffic control and ground control communication protocol there would never be a last second interruption in the issuance of a command such as this because, the information needed to "taxi into position and hold" which is what the tower controller was about to say, would have already been "made up" in her mind and she spoke as though someone, last minute, shoved a piece of paper in front of her or that she received some emergency print out over-riding her command.  It just does not happen that way.  And if someone had "flagged her down" there would have been some type of hesitation in her voice, or at the very least, she would have said, "Emerates standby".  I'm presuming the "authorities" intentionally allowed this part of the case to unfold with this drama so as to create the impression that he narrowly escaped and through that drama, change the law regarding notification to airlines, and give some boost to the pressure from the Administration to switch notifications from the Secure Flight program to the TSA.

Controllers are excellent multi-taskers and I would bet that she was either handed a note which she was reading as she began to issue the clearance or someone was whispering it in her ear.  To think that this is anything more than that is, IMHO, phobic. I can't envision any grand Administration plan that would take such a risk.  Besides, we all know that any kind of government plan/plot requires any number of meetings and proposals before it comes to fruition and that would have taken weeks or months!   :-D

Offline glencar

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Re: Suspect in failed Times Square bombing pulled off UAE202 at JFK
« Reply #16 on: May 05, 2010, 08:32:38 PM »
Plus controllers wouldn't participate in that kind of crap. I'm sure while she was reading the usual spiel, she was told that UAE202 had to go back to the gate.

Offline SkyPie

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Re: Suspect in failed Times Square bombing pulled off UAE202 at JFK
« Reply #17 on: May 06, 2010, 03:23:45 AM »
Or she's just human like the rest of us and didn't immediately associate "aircraft on this message I received" with "aircraft I'm now handling" until she had said it aloud. I've certainly done that before and I'd imagine when your main focus is on safely working several aircraft at once, information from outside your normal, everyday work flow is probably not going to get the same mental treatment as information coming from the inbound aircraft that just contacted you or the flight strip you were just handed. I'd also imagine it being even easier to miss the association at first if the message and, say, the flight strip referred to the aircraft in different ways (e.g. full airline name vs. IATA vs. ICAO designator).

Not everything needs to be a conspiracy. :-D

Offline w0x0f

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Re: Suspect in failed Times Square bombing pulled off UAE202 at JFK
« Reply #18 on: May 06, 2010, 11:41:28 AM »
The reason for that is the 119.1 frequency was stopped as the tower frequency that night. They switched to 123.9.

As a pilot is seems a little suspicious to me that the controller issues the command "..runway 22 right taxi position actually I have a message for you to go back to the gate immediately...", all stated in one breath without hesitation.  Normally in air traffic control and ground control communication protocol there would never be a last second interruption in the issuance of a command such as this because, the information needed to "taxi into position and hold" which is what the tower controller was about to say, would have already been "made up" in her mind and she spoke as though someone, last minute, shoved a piece of paper in front of her or that she received some emergency print out over-riding her command.  It just does not happen that way.  And if someone had "flagged her down" there would have been some type of hesitation in her voice, or at the very least, she would have said, "Emerates standby".  I'm presuming the "authorities" intentionally allowed this part of the case to unfold with this drama so as to create the impression that he narrowly escaped and through that drama, change the law regarding notification to airlines, and give some boost to the pressure from the Administration to switch notifications from the Secure Flight program to the TSA.

The authorities intentionally allowed this part of the case to unfold to give Jack Bauer time to deactivate the dirty bomb and make it over to JFK.

 :roll:

w0x0f

Offline glencar

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Re: Suspect in failed Times Square bombing pulled off UAE202 at JFK
« Reply #19 on: May 06, 2010, 01:11:26 PM »
I'm gonna miss that show!

Offline SikPilot

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Re: Suspect in failed Times Square bombing pulled off UAE202 at JFK
« Reply #20 on: May 06, 2010, 01:26:24 PM »


Glad they caught him but...

...  Don't you think given the circumstances, known terrorist bomber on board, they should have taxied the plane to a secure less crowded area rather than back to a gate? 

Cap747

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Re: Suspect in failed Times Square bombing pulled off UAE202 at JFK
« Reply #21 on: May 06, 2010, 02:11:08 PM »
He left his "package" at Times Square I'll guess nobody thought of more "problems"... We have to ask someone about it.... :wink:

Offline SirIsaac726

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Re: Suspect in failed Times Square bombing pulled off UAE202 at JFK
« Reply #22 on: May 06, 2010, 07:11:17 PM »


Glad they caught him but...

...  Don't you think given the circumstances, known terrorist bomber on board, they should have taxied the plane to a secure less crowded area rather than back to a gate? 

Not really.  He had to have passed security.  If he made a bomb threat to the plane, then I'm sure they would have.  But taxiing back to the gate is the easiest and less disruptive thing to do if there is no threat to the plane itself.

Offline bulgin

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Re: Suspect in failed Times Square bombing pulled off UAE202 at JFK
« Reply #23 on: May 09, 2010, 09:55:31 AM »
they knew his whereabouts from the moment they had his cell phone number, which was well before the made it to JFK.  So when they say they "lost" him, do you really think they did, as was reported in the news outlets?  One poster mentioned they had an AWACS plan over head.  You think the AWACS "lost" him?

It's not conspiracy, it's just the way the government works.  You think they are gonna tell you everything?

Offline SirIsaac726

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Re: Suspect in failed Times Square bombing pulled off UAE202 at JFK
« Reply #24 on: May 09, 2010, 03:13:45 PM »
they knew his whereabouts from the moment they had his cell phone number, which was well before the made it to JFK.  So when they say they "lost" him, do you really think they did, as was reported in the news outlets?  One poster mentioned they had an AWACS plan over head.  You think the AWACS "lost" him?

It's not conspiracy, it's just the way the government works.  You think they are gonna tell you everything?

You realize you are talking about the news media, right?  The news will find the easiest and most general way to report something even if it isn't completely accurate.

Regarding the AWACS, I highly doubt that.  They don't readily have planes like that flying over the New York area like 24 and Jack Bauer make people believe.

And they aren't going to tell us everything as not everyone needs to know.  However, point to another instance where something like this has happened where it has been determined the government let things play out for the drama.  The chain of communication from the government to the ATC would take too long and would need some nice organization well in advance for this to work.

I think you are just paranoid right now. Remember, this isn't 24 and this isn't TV where they make dramatize everything. :-P