Suspicions on flight force stop at Logan

Flight to London delayed nine hours

By Mac Daniel and Lisa Fleisher - The Boston Globe - Boston.com - Mass. - News: "About 5 1/2 hours after leaving Los Angeles, as United Air Lines Flight 934 prepared to head over the Atlantic toward London, the plane's captain quickly diverted the Boeing 777 to Boston early yesterday after his crew reported suspicious activities by three Pakistani men.

Federal officials said the men had spent the flight walking back and forth between their seats, one in first class, another in business class, and the third in coach.

Some passengers also said they overheard the men discussing the recent London transit bombings. Some said they had another passenger take a photo of them posing together in front of the Los Angeles International Airport boarding gate. Other passengers said the men checked no luggage.

A spokesman for United Air Lines said the men ''were doing much more than just walking around" and alarmed the crew enough to notify the captain, but declined to provide details ''because that's considered sensitive information."

The plane, with 226 passengers and 14 crew members aboard, landed at Logan International Airport at 2:50 a.m. and was met by FBI, State Police, and agents from the Transportation Security Administration and US Customs and Border Protection, said TSA spokeswoman Ann Davis. Officers armed with M-16 rifles filed down both aisles and escorted the three men off the plane, passengers said.

The three men -- who were in the country on business and had visited several states, according to federal officials -- were questioned extensively by agents. They were released after several hours, the security concerns apparently allayed, and late yesterday were put on a different plane.

FBI spokeswoman Gail Marcinkiewicz refused to name the men, give their ages, or provide any other information because no charges were filed.

While the men were questioned, passengers were kept in their seats for about two hours as State Police searched the airliner, including passengers' bags, with bomb-sniffing dogs. Police found nothing suspicious, said Marcinkiewicz.

The passengers were then allowed off the plane and went to hotel rooms, ate, or walked around the terminal. About nine hours after arriving at Logan, they left on the same 777, bound for London.

Earlier this month, a US Airways flight en route from Charlotte, N.C., to London landed at Logan after a British passenger who mixed wine with medication allegedly assaulted crew members and threatened to kill everyone on board. Davis said there's no formula for when a plane should be diverted.

''It's always better to be safe than sorry," she said.

Passengers said they were told the diversion was needed to fix the plane's navigation equipment.

''As soon as we saw the police coming in, at least to me, it was clear it wasn't the navigation system -- something else was wrong," said Natalia Mitera, 23, who was headed home to Bulgaria after finishing an internship in Seattle.

Waiting in Terminal C to complete their flight after a long, sleepless morning, many passengers had circles under their eyes and were moving sluggishly.

Ernest Scotti, 50, of Los Angeles was heading for a vacation in London with his wife and two daughters when the diversion forced them to spend nine unplanned hours in East Boston.

''You take it in stride when you travel. You're not happy with it. Our flight's messed up, we lost a day of our vacation. What are you going to do?" he said.

David Stempler, president of the Air Travelers Association, said yesterday that diversions that turn out to be false alarms have been increasing nationwide.

''But we are in a state of war not of our own choosing, and you have to rely on perceptions that, at times, can create some inconvenience," he said."