“I would suggest, pray on the plane...

[Theophylact]

...and put the tefillin on later on”:

A Flight Is Diverted by a Prayer Seen as Ominous

By JAMES BARRON

The plane, a 50-seat regional aircraft that was less than a third full when it took off from La Guardia Airport, had been climbing through the early-morning sky for about 25 minutes. A 17-year-old passenger in a whitish sweater took out something he had carried onboard, and strapped it onto his wrist and his head.

To some people in New York, that is a relatively common sight: an observant Jew beginning the ritual of morning prayer. But to at least one person on US Airways Express Flight 3079 on Thursday — the flight attendant — it looked ominous, as if the young man were wrapping himself in cables or wires.

And in a time when in-flight thinking is colored by the brutal knowledge that passengers have hidden bombs in underwear or shoes, she told the officers in the cockpit.

The pilot decided to divert the Kentucky-bound plane to Philadelphia. In less than 30 minutes it was on the ground, police officers were swarming through the passenger cabin, and the Transportation Security Administration was using terms like “disruptive passenger” and “suspicious passenger” to describe the boy.

An hour or so after that, Lt. Frank Vanore, a spokesman for the Philadelphia police, had another explanation.

“It was unfamiliarity that caused this,” he said.

He said the flight crew had never seen tefillin, small leather boxes attached to leather straps that observant Jews wear during morning prayers. The flight crew “didn’t understand what it was,” he said, and the pilot “erred on the side of caution and decided to radio that in and to divert the flight.”

The boy’s grandmother, Frances Winchell, said it was just one of those things. “It’s true that we in America are very, very skittish,” she said at the airport in Louisville, where she had been waiting to meet the boy and his 13-year-old sister, who was also on Flight 3079. Mrs. Winchell said she hoped people would learn about the rituals and not be fearful.

The young man and his sister, whose names were not released, are from White Plains, the authorities said. Rabbi Shmuel Greenberg of Young Israel of White Plains said that they were members of his congregation and that the young man was “a good boy, bright, intelligent, as docile as you can imagine.”

“He didn’t think of the ramifications, I guess,” Rabbi Greenberg said. “You can’t expect the whole world to know what this ritual is all about.”

He said men in his congregation recited morning prayers “if at all possible within four hours after sunrise.”

“Nobody would have assumed it would create panic,” he said, “but in today’s environment, I guess everything creates panic.”

In fact, Lieutenant Vanore said the other passengers did not know exactly why the plane went to Philadelphia until it was on the ground and police officers and federal agents began checking for explosives. They found none. The young man was “was completely cooperative” and explained the prayer ritual, Lieutenant Vanore said.

He explained that the scare began when the young man was “in the process of praying.” The flight attendant noticed the tefillin and asked what he was doing.

The young man’s response was straightforward, Lieutenant Vanore said: “He gave the explanation he was in prayer.”

But the flight attendant was concerned about the tefillin. She called the cockpit and “described it as best as she’d seen it,” Lieutenant Vanore said, “and there was an item wrapped around his head, straps or wires.” “The straps did appear to be cables or wires to her,” he said. “To the naked eye looking at it, it looked like that. She said it had wires running from it and going up to his fingers. When they notified the pilot of that, he had to follow his protocol. It’s hard to Monday-morning-quarterback it.”

The young man and his sister went on to Louisville from Philadelphia. He said nothing as he walked through the terminal in Louisville in mid-afternoon.

Reached at her home on Thursday night, Ms. Winchell would not put her grandson or granddaughter on the telephone, but she allowed a reporter to ask questions on a speakerphone while they were present. Ms. Winchell said that police officers who boarded the plane pointed their guns “at the passengers as a whole” and at her grandson “a little bit.” She said her grandson and granddaughter were then handcuffed for a few minutes.

“The handcuffs were only for a short period of time,” she said.

A spokesman for the Philadelphia police could not be reached for comment after the interview with Ms. Winchell.

Some observant Jews said they were not surprised that the ritual had attracted attention — or that people on the plane would have been unfamiliar with it. “When they see a passenger strapping yourself,” said Isaac Abraham, a Satmar who lives in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, and campaigned for the Democratic nomination for a City Council seat last year, “you might as well strap yourself with hand grenades. They have no idea.”

“He probably just figured, ‘I have nothing else to do on the plane, I might as well use this time to pray,’ ” he added. “Other people read. They watch a movie. He figured, ‘Let me grab the time.’ But the obvious reality of it is that when we see people carrying explosive material in their shoes and their pants and I am the passenger next to him and see someone strapping, I would panic too.”

Rabbi Greenberg, the boy’s rabbi, had some advice for future flights.

“I would suggest, pray on the plane and put the tefillin on later on,” he said. “Pray, and fulfill the ritual later.”

Hey, it's hard to tell one swarthy type form another, especially when you're pig-ignorant.

[tony_j15]

Horrible.

[Epidemic]

Pig-ignorant is there any reasonable expectation that people would know of these rituals?

yes you they may have been ignorant to the rituals. However it appears as if you are bashing the people for said ignorance.

I would guess that most of the population would not recognize the ritual just as they would not recognize the Vulcan/romulan secret polka dance or Telesis 5.

[butch81385]

[monday morning quarterback]
The flight attendant probably should have asked a follow up question along the lines of "what are those boxes?". An explanation might have prevented the diversion (radio it in and ask someone to wikipedia what he said).
[/monday morning quarterback]

Honestly, though, I have never seen those before, and would not have known what they were.

If you don't live in an area that has many Jewish people, it is very easy to not know of these traditions. All of my Jewish friends were familiar with this when I asked them, but none of them practice it.

Maybe we need to hire more Jewish flight attendants?

Really, besides asking more questions, what would the appropriate response be in that situation? Ignore it? She could have felt that more questions could have irritated him into action if he was, indeed, a terrorist.

[Epidemic]

I lived in the jewish capital of the united states (New York near the city) and never saw these things.

Tefillin - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


they might as well scream I have a bomb if you did not know of the religion. I probably would have given them a pass as he was wearing jewish garb. but that pre-supposes that I recognized jewish garb. the Tefflin though that is new on me. when did they start doing that? some kind of new trend? just kidding don't try to answer that one.

[brandon184]

Really, besides asking more questions, what would the appropriate response be in that situation? Ignore it? She could have felt that more questions could have irritated him into action if he was, indeed, a terrorist.

If I thought someone was wrapping cables and wires to themselves, you can be damn sure that I would be getting to the bottom of it NOW instead of keeping silent and going to the cockpit to alert the pilots to divert the plane. If he was preparing the bomb the aircraft, he probably would have succeeded in the time that was created for him to do so.

The flight attendant should be fired if she wasn't following procedure.

[Socalgal]

“I would suggest, pray on the plane and put the tefillin on later on,” he said. “Pray, and fulfill the ritual later.”

Sounds like good advice.

qft, epi and brandon.

[GroundZero3]

Hrm if someone did that next to me I wouldn't have the foggiest idea in the world as to what they were doing.

[brandon184]

qft, epi and brandon.

What does QFT mean?

[howste]

Call me pig-ignorant too. I've never seen them, and would probably have been suspicious if I saw someone using them on a plane.

QFT = quoted for truth.

[B71655]

Or , quite (frankly) true.
As to the tefillen, I married into a Hungarian Jewish family, and have only seen them once, in the mourning period after a death. My son was shown how and why, and I looked on. This boy did not even think about it, I'm sure. Hopefully, publicity will make both sides of this rite aware of today's perceptions. From New York on a plane, bus or train, this will happen again. Another one for you, look at the door of a Jews home, you will see a small item. It will have a piece of text from the Torah, the Jewish Bible equivalent. Theo might know if it is a standard text, or varies. I have to ask, I don't remember.

[Theophylact]

Or , quite (frankly) true.
As to the tefillen, I married into a Hungarian Jewish family, and have only seen them once, in the mourning period after a death. My son was shown how and why, and I looked on. This boy did not even think about it, I'm sure. Hopefully, publicity will make both sides of this rite aware of today's perceptions. From New York on a plane, bus or train, this will happen again. Another one for you, look at the door of a Jews home, you will see a small item. It will have a piece of text from the Torah, the Jewish Bible equivalent. Theo might know if it is a standard text, or varies. I have to ask, I don't remember.

It's called a mezuzah, and the text is invariable. Many non-observant Jews have them. I've thought about having one myself, even though I'm an atheist, just to make a statement.

You really have to be pretty observant to use tefillin; my brother, who is observant, doesn't; his son the rabbi does.

[MTAtech]

Both the tefillen and mezuzah have the same segment of the Torah inscribed:

Hear, O Israel,
the Lord our God, the Lord is one.
Blessed is his name,
whose glorious kingdom is forever.

And you shall love the Lord with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might.

And these words, which I command you this day, shall be upon your heart: and you shall teach them always to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, when you walk by the way, when you lie down, and when you arise.

And you shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they will be seen as a badge between your eyes.

And you shall write them on the doorposts of your house, and upon your gates.

[sweeper2]

i'm glad they did divert and proceeded with caution ... If you don't know then I'd rather be cautious then have someone say they are doing a prayer ritual and then blow up a plane..... I give the airplane pilots and crew the benefit of the doubt ....

[PoonDoggy]

Pig-ignorant here too. Flight attendant did the right thing in not causing panic on board the plane and, if he had been a terrorist, not alarming him. Pilot did the right thing in getting the plane down asap.

Why wasnt Tefellin suspicious looking at the security check?

[brandon184]

Flight attendant did the right thing in not causing panic on board the plane and, if he had been a terrorist, not alarming him.

So you're seriously telling me that if you were sitting beside someone who started wrapping what appeared to be "wires" around themselves just after your plane takes off, and whom you suspected could be a terrorist, you would do nothing so that the person didn't get "alarmed"?

Since I don't like the planes I'm flying on to be blown up, I'd say, "What are you doing?". Judging by the article, what he was doing wasn't inconspicuous, so it's not like asking him what he was doing could have possibly shocked the guy.

A different scenario might be if you saw a guy go into the washroom and before he shuts the door you see him pull something out of his pocket that looks like a strange device with wires sticking out of it. THEN I would tell the flight attendant about it without trying to let the guy know what was going on.

[tony_j15]

The amount of people who are ok with this outcome seems to prove that the government, with the media's help, have been highly successful in instilling the new national religion of Safety At All Costs.
now pardon me while I shout the word "terror" a few dozen times until you sheeple are cowering in the corner screaming to give up more of your rights for a false sense of security. The paranoia in this nation is pathetic and unhealthy.

[MTAtech]

I take away something different, Tony. It shows how ignorant Americans are of other religions. This plane took off from LGA in New York City, where there is a high Jewish population. What? There weren't enough knowledgeable people on board to clue in the crew of what they were seeing.

[Steve R Jones]

So you're seriously telling me that if you were sitting beside someone who started wrapping what appeared to be "wires" around themselves just after your plane takes off, and whom you suspected could be a terrorist, you would do nothing so that the person didn't get "alarmed"?

If YOU were a/the bomber - and I asked you if that things is a bomb and are you going to kill me/everyone in the plane -> Exactly how truthful would your answer be

[butch81385]

If YOU were a/the bomber - and I asked you if that things is a bomb and are you going to kill me/everyone in the plane -> Exactly how truthful would your answer be

And you get the response: "No, this isn't a bomb, I always strap myself up with black boxes when I pray. It's a Jewish thing."

Now at that point I would be very concerned, because I have some Jewish friends and have never heard of this custom.

MTA, just because the plane stopped there, doesn't mean that the crew were Jewish. What would you have the flight attendant do, hold the guy up in the front of the plane and ask if anyone knows what he is doing?

Also, as far as asking more questions, I don't really blame the flight attendant for not asking more. After he says that he is praying, what do you ask? What are those black boxes that look like they have wires coming out of them? I assume you would get 1 of 2 responses. Either "It's a Jewish prayer custom" or "*Boom*".

IF it was a terrorist strapping stuff to his body, asking him what he is doing could cause him to detonate right away, where as leaving him alone and grounding the plane screws up his plan (at least until they announce that they are landing or until you feel or see that you are landing). I don't know proper procedure in terms of how they land (not tell anyone, slow unnoticeable descent, etc), so I don't know how likely that is, but either way, at that point you have screwed up his plan and he doesn't know why. It is at least a better chance than just letting him be.