How a bomb suspect almost got away | msnbc.com
A day after TSA tightened rules on how often airlines need to cross check their passenger databases against no-fly lists, the question remains: How did the would-be Times Square bomber manage to get on a plane at all?
Actually, according to security officials I’ve spoken to in the last few days, what we should be marveling at is that Faisal Shahzad, an Pakistani-born American citizen, was at least apprehended before the Dubai-bound Emirates flight took off.
In fact, the more common scenario we hear about is the mid-flight diversion. Several weeks ago a Delta flight from Nigeria to New York made an unscheduled landing in Puerto Rico to offload a passenger whose name had raised a red flag half way through the flight. Earlier this year a Continental flight to Bogota landed in Florida instead to check out a suspicious person, in what turned out to be a case of mistaken identity. And every few months, it seems, we read of yet another transatlantic flight landing at some small airfield in Maine (they’re getting used to it — they even have a jail at Bangor Airport, mainly for drunken air-ragers.) And of course on Christmas the underwear bomber got on a flight and nearly made it to his final destination, though he was not on a no-fly list — but he should have been.
