2 Planes Diverted After Disturbances
Sept. 11 -- With the nation on heightened alert for terrorist attacks today, observances of the Sept. 11 anniversary passed smoothly, but officials reported a handful of incidents around the country.
American Airlines Flight 1702 returned to Houston's George Bush Intercontinental Airport shortly after takeoff because a flight attendant reported seeing a passenger with a small folding knife. Two air marshals aboard the plane responded and the man was removed after it landed, officials told ABCNEWS.
The Dallas-bound plane, which was carrying 50 passengers and a crew of four, received a fighter jet escort as it turned around.
Further investigation determined the passenger in fact did not have a weapon, officials said. What he had been holding turned out to be a folding comb.
The FBI said officials questioned another man aboard the plane who aroused fellow passengers' suspicions by changing seats during the flight. No charges were filed against either of the men on the Dallas-bound flight.
In a separate incident, a Northwest Airlines jetliner traveling from Memphis, Tenn., to Las Vegas was diverted to Fort Smith, Ark., after the crew reported that four men acted suspiciously during the flight and refused to obey orders from the five-member cabin crew.
"Some of the crew members became suspicious because of some of the actions taken by the four subjects," said Sgt. Jarrard Copeland of the Fort Smith Police Department. At least three of the men locked themselves in a bathroom, and some passengers reported they might have been trying to shave themselves.
"[One of the men was] walking up and down, and the stewardess asked him again to sit down, and he went to the back and that's the last I saw of him," said passenger Cathy McDougal, of Long Beach, Miss.
"The next thing you know, the pilot came on and said that we were making an emergency landing and we went down real fast," McDougal said.
All 94 passengers were taken off Flight 979 without problems and the men were brought into a hangar and then removed from the airport.
The FBI determined there was no criminal activity aboard the plane.
In Columbus, Ohio, a 42-story building housing numerous government offices was evacuated after dogs detected the scent of explosives. No explosives were immediately found, but police took one man into custody, officials told The Associated Press.
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