Passengers Aboard Flight Delayed 18 Hours

On Fri, 31 Dec 2004 12:10:56 -0500, nobody wrote:

*bicker* wrote:
You are mistaken. Government officials are supposed to
maintain secure areas secure. Kidnapping describes a
felony, committed by a criminal, not a control action taken
by an authorized official.

Sorry, but detaining anyone against their will without any legal reason is
kidnapping.

Nope. Unlawful detention is what you mean.

The USA government may wrap itself into its onw flag, but the
kidnapped victims are Gantanamo have been detained against their will, without
any legal reason,

The United States Supreme Court disagree with you. And, kiddo,
they're pretty good at that "legal reason" stuff.

haven't been charged with any crime and have been tortured.

Maybe on the latter. The actual facts are somewhat in dispute.

I'm no fan of the Guantanamo situation, but there's a difference
between thinking that the legal argument is unsound and the claim that
there is no legal argument.

Not only that, but they were taken from their place of residence against their
will and transported across the world where they are kept in dog cages and
treated as dogs.

They are not kept in dog cages.

At some stage and to some degree, detention without trial is a
necessary part of civilization. No-one would reasonably object to
detention for a matter of hours (e.g. until the next business day)...
and I think most of the civilized word would begin to ask questions if
the detention lasts months or years.

The problem with Guantamo Bay is not the detention, the
transportation, or the conditions so much as the absence of a legal
process that the detainees can work within.

Malc.

On Fri, 31 Dec 2004 17:57:59 +0000, Roland Perry
wrote:

In message , at 10:27:43 on
Fri, 31 Dec 2004, "Clark W. Griswold, Jr."
remarked:
What we are discussing here is what a reasonable limit is. No one would argue
that a country has the right to screen passengers upon entry to the country to
ascertain their citizenship. They also have the right to implement policy and
rules to implement that process which could include keeping the passengers in a
sterile area (defined as no contact with non-passengers) until screening is
complete.

Clearly, making that screening process take months or years is unreasonable.
Making that process take an hour or two, while possibly uncomfortable, is not.

The question on the table is when does a reasonable process become unlawful
detention?

There are normally tests of "reasonableness". So, for example, how far
is this rural airport from Seattle, and how quickly could a team of
people be driven there to complete the formalities?

Well, it's 183 miles, and the airport at Seattle is supposedly closed.
So I guess 6 hours might be enough.

Alternatively, those 6 hours could have been spent bussing a new flight
crew from Seattle, as air transport was clearly a bit dodgy that day.

And don't miss the fact that conditions at Moses Lake contributed to
the problem even after they had a new crew...

Malc.

On Fri, 31 Dec 2004 17:57:59 +0000, Roland Perry
wrote:

In message , at 10:27:43 on
Fri, 31 Dec 2004, "Clark W. Griswold, Jr."
remarked:
What we are discussing here is what a reasonable limit is. No one would argue
that a country has the right to screen passengers upon entry to the country to
ascertain their citizenship. They also have the right to implement policy and
rules to implement that process which could include keeping the passengers in a
sterile area (defined as no contact with non-passengers) until screening is
complete.

Clearly, making that screening process take months or years is unreasonable.
Making that process take an hour or two, while possibly uncomfortable, is not.

The question on the table is when does a reasonable process become unlawful
detention?

There are normally tests of "reasonableness". So, for example, how far
is this rural airport from Seattle, and how quickly could a team of
people be driven there to complete the formalities?

Well, it's 183 miles, and the airport at Seattle is supposedly closed.
So I guess 6 hours might be enough.

Alternatively, those 6 hours could have been spent bussing a new flight
crew from Seattle, as air transport was clearly a bit dodgy that day.

And don't miss the fact that conditions at Moses Lake contributed to
the problem even after they had a new crew...

Malc.

On Fri, 31 Dec 2004 13:32:52 -0000, "JohnT"
wrote:

[ Snip ]

Isn't it likely that many of the occupants of the aircraft were citizens
of the USA? And, if so, don't they have the right of entry to the United
States?

Of course.

Now, prove that you have the right...

That's the problem.

JohnT

Malc.

On Fri, 31 Dec 2004 13:32:52 -0000, "JohnT"
wrote:

[ Snip ]

Isn't it likely that many of the occupants of the aircraft were citizens
of the USA? And, if so, don't they have the right of entry to the United
States?

Of course.

Now, prove that you have the right...

That's the problem.

JohnT

Malc.

On Fri, 31 Dec 2004 10:38:36 -0500, nobody wrote:

JohnT wrote:
Isn't it likely that many of the occupants of the aircraft were citizens
of the USA? And, if so, don't they have the right of entry to the United
States?

Nop. On an international flight, there are no nationalities.

Nationality is only ascertained once you get off the plane and go through
immigration. Until that time, there is nobody empowered to verify your
passport and grant you entry or not into a country.

The real fault here lies with the northwest pilot and/or Northwest operations.

Exactamundo!

The plane should have diverted to a "real" airport capable of handling an
international flight well before its fuel was so low that it had to land at
the nearest airfield knowing that passengers there would be emprisoned due to
lack of immigration/customs facilities.

(and the USA should really apply some standard to the use of the word
"international airport" which should apply only to airports with real
customs/immigration facilities.

All true. But in fairness we don't know what NW was being told by
ATC, etc.

If NW was told that SEA was closed, and the time of reopening was
unknown, it would have made much more sense to divert to MSP, which
has both the immigration facility and the NW presence to handle the
situation.

Secondly, if landing at that run of the mill airfield was truly the only
option, then the plane shoudl have refueled and gone from there to a real
airport, clear the pax, and then, hope seattle was re-opened and fly the pax
domestically to seattle.

Using which crew? And what if conditions at Moses Lake impeded a
departure?

Northwest seems to consistently make such large and stupid mistakes, so I find
it amazing that they are relatively well off compared to Untied and US Air.

It's remarkable, isn't it? I think a lot of the answer goes to the
KL/NW connection, which they implemented well (and now it's
KL/AF/NW/DL/CO, which is remarkable), plus the (probably) strongest
overseas hub of any US airline (in Japan), and strong fortress hubs in
Detroit and Minneapolis.

Malc.

"Malcolm Weir" wrote in message
...
On Fri, 31 Dec 2004 21:25:26 -0500, "Dennis G. Rears"
wrote:

"Malcolm Weir" wrote in message
. ..
On Fri, 31 Dec 2004 01:41:09 -0600, (Miguel Cruz)
wrote:

Malcolm Weir wrote:
There was no intermediate point. Under US law, *all* passengers must
clear immigration at the first landfall, so by definition, SEA would
have been the first landfall.

Is this true?

Yes.

Can you provide a USC cite?

In Nov, 1999 I flew from AKL-LAX.

Things change. Does the date September 11, 2001 mean anything to you?

Not really, just another day in the life.... If you are talking about the
terrorist attacks, it was where the beginning of USA paranoia and the
beginning of massive constitutional violations of USA rights.

dennis

In message , at 21:25:26 on Fri, 31 Dec
2004, Dennis G. Rears remarked:
There was no intermediate point. Under US law, *all* passengers must
clear immigration at the first landfall, so by definition, SEA would
have been the first landfall.

Is this true? In Nov, 1999 I flew from AKL-LAX. Because of mechanical
problems prior to the flight we had to divert to HNL for a replacement crew.
They announced this before we took off. Evidently the crew had/would had
exceeded FAA regulations for crew rest. We were on the ground for at least
90 minutes. In addition to a new crew, we were refueled, had garbage
removed and ore food brought in. We were not allowed off the plane.

So there was no passenger landfall.

We did not do customs or immigration in HNL. This was a UA flight.
What should have been only a 14 hour flight turned in 18 hours.

--
Roland Perry

In message , at 21:25:26 on Fri, 31 Dec
2004, Dennis G. Rears remarked:
There was no intermediate point. Under US law, *all* passengers must
clear immigration at the first landfall, so by definition, SEA would
have been the first landfall.

Is this true? In Nov, 1999 I flew from AKL-LAX. Because of mechanical
problems prior to the flight we had to divert to HNL for a replacement crew.
They announced this before we took off. Evidently the crew had/would had
exceeded FAA regulations for crew rest. We were on the ground for at least
90 minutes. In addition to a new crew, we were refueled, had garbage
removed and ore food brought in. We were not allowed off the plane.

So there was no passenger landfall.

We did not do customs or immigration in HNL. This was a UA flight.
What should have been only a 14 hour flight turned in 18 hours.

--
Roland Perry

In message , at 13:39:31 on
Fri, 31 Dec 2004, "Clark W. Griswold, Jr."
remarked:
The main delay seems to have been getting the new crew to the rural
airport, rather than sitting around wondering when Seattle airport was
going to open.

That's an airline issue though - not an immigration check delay. Which gets back
to my original point. NWA, of all airlines, should have been better prepared
with procedures in place to deal with passengers locked up in an aircraft for
hours on end.

I agree, but these large delays seem to occur regularly [1]. They
probably get reported only when there's the additional "quarantine"
factor caused by immigration rules.

[1] And not just planes, Eurostar trains from Paris to London have had
similar extended imprisonments of the passengers when technical faults
have happened at an inconvenient place.
--
Roland Perry