Tag: air travel

Man Kicked Off Flight For Wearing Pro Trump T-Shirt

Delta Airlines removed a passenger from one of its flights this past weekend for wearing a pro Donald Trump t-shirt.

The shirt featured a design of Trump wearing sunglasses adorned with the US flag, while flipping a double ‘up yours’.

The airline had flagged the shirt before boarding at Sarasota Bradenton International Airport following a complaint from one other passenger.

The man was allowed to board after he agreed to turn the shirt inside out, but then reversed it back once inside the plane.

A staff member then asked the man to leave and escorted him from the plane.

In video of the incident, the man can be heard saying, “I’m getting kicked off because of my shirt,” and calls the flight attendant “stupid-ass Wendy” after reading her name tag.

The passenger who captured footage of the incident noted “Crazy day in Sarasota airport, I was sitting next to a young man before boarding that had on a Trump shirt with middle fingers and a red coat came over and told him some lady complained and he had to change his shirt or he could not get on the plane.”

The other passenger continued, “He turned his shirt inside out, and we all boarded. Next thing I know, right before takeoff, a Delta employee comes on the plane and escorts him off the flight, he had flipped his shirt back to the decal side. IDK but I’ve seen way worse….girl half naked boarded and left alone.”

Delta guidelines note that the company reserves the right to remove anyone if their “conduct, attire, hygiene or odor creates an unreasonable risk of offense or annoyance to other passengers.”

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Rand Paul Asks Why TSA Is Using Terror Watch List To Spy On Americans “Based On Their Political Views”

GOP Senator Rand Paul has written to the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) asking for answers as to why the agency appears to be using terrorist watch lists as a way of surveilling Americans according to their political opinions.

Paul addressed the letter to TSA Administrator David Pekoske, and cited recent revelations that former Democratic Representative Tulsi Gabbard as well as a woman married to a federal air marshal whistleblower have both been placed on the ‘Quiet Skies’ program watch list and subjected to enhanced surveillance.

Gabbard was seemingly added to the watch list after a Fox News interview during which she criticised the ‘deep state’, while the air marshal’s wife was added after attending Donald Trump’s speech on January 6th, despite not moving to the Capitol building after it.

“Taken together, these incidents seem to be part of a broader pattern in which TSA has repurposed Quiet Skies to surveil individuals based on their political activities, even when there is no evidence of wrongdoing,” Paul wrote.

The Senator further noted that the incidents “echo concerns highlighted in a previous report by the Department of Homeland Security’s Office of Inspector General (OIG), which identified critical deficiencies in TSA’s management of the Quiet Skies program.” 

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Gabbard Episode Shows the Surveillance State Strong and Stupid as Ever

The former Representative Tulsi Gabbard (D-HI) is apparently the latest Biden critic to be targeted for federal surveillance and harassment. Gabbard, an outspoken opponent of America’s forever wars, is reportedly being stalked by Transportation Security Administration’s air marshals, part of the agency’s Quiet Skies covert operation targeting suspected threats to aviation.

After TSA whistleblowers were quoted confirming the surveillance, Gabbard declared that placing her on the TSA Quiet Skies target list was “clearly an act of political retaliation. It’s no accident that I was placed on the Quiet Skies list the day after I did a prime-time interview warning the American people about… why Kamala Harris would be bad for our country if elected as President.” Gabbard lamented that, despite serving in the U.S. Army for 21 years, “now my government is surveilling me as a potential domestic terrorist.” She groused about “the stress of forever looking over my shoulder, wondering if and how I am being watched, what secret terror watch list I’m on, and having no transparency or due process.” As one Twitter wag quipped, “The only thing Tulsi Gabbard blew up was Kamala’s earlier presidential run. That’s why she’s on a list.” 

On Wednesday, Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) sent a letter to TSA chief David Pekoske complaining that the Gabbard surveillance appeared to be “part of a broader pattern in which TSA has repurposed Quiet Skies to surveil individuals based on their political activities, even when there is no evidence of wrongdoing.” Paul requested that TSA speedily turn over “unredacted copies of all current guidelines, criteria, standard operating procedures, and related documents governing the selection of individuals for TSA-managed lists and programs, including the Quiet Skies program.” Paul himself had epic airport clashes with TSA officials in 2012, and the agency has been paying the price ever since. 

In response to an inquiry by journalist Matt Taibbi on the Gabbard controversy, TSA issued a formal statement refusing to confirm or deny the targeting of Gabbard: “TSA’s Quiet Skies program uses a risk-based approach to identify passengers and apply enhanced security measures on some domestic and outbound international flights. To safeguard sensitive national security measures, TSA does not confirm or deny whether any individual has matched to a risk-based rule… Simply matching to a risk-based rule does not constitute derogatory information about an individual.”

In fact, a primary purpose of Quiet Skies is to entitle federal agents to stockpile derogatory information on their targets. 

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Boeing Pleads Guilty To Fraud As Effort To Bring Manufacturing In-House Proceeds With Acquisition Of Spirit Aerosystems

The story behind Boeing guilty plea today is the effort to bring its manufacturing futher ‘in-house’ after a disastrous focus on financial profitability, and not its core-competency – building airplanes.

The acquisition of ‘Spirit Aerosystems’, which made the door which failed during an Alaskan Airlines flight, and a major subcontractor for Boeing, continues.

Boeing agreed to plead guilty to a conspiracy fraud charge tied to the 737 Max crashes.

Under the deal, Boeing agreed to pay a $243.6 million fine and for an third-party monitor to be installed to monitor the company’s compliance, reported CNBC.

The deal spares Boeing from a trial just as the plane maker is trying to turn a corner in its safety and manufacturing crises.

The guilty plea would brand the planemaker a felon and could complicate its ability to sell products to the U.S. government. About 32% of Boeing’s nearly $78 billion in revenue last year came from its defense, space and security unit.

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Counterfeit Chinese Titanium Discovered In Some Boeing Jets, Per FAA

On Friday, the Financial Times reported that Boeing acknowledged some parts of their jets contain counterfeit titanium from China.

The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) reported that Boeing had told officials they had received titanium parts containing counterfeit documentation.

Boeing bought the counterfeit components from Kansas-based aerostructure manufacturer Spirit AeroSystems.

In the past, Spirit AeroSystems has had problems with quality issues.

The Financial Times reported Spirit AeroSystems received the titanium from China, where its documentation was reportedly falsified.

The FAA said in a statement, “Once we realized the counterfeit titanium made its way into the supply chain, we immediately contained all suspected parts to determine the scope of the issues.”

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Boeing faces 10 more whistleblowers after two die: ‘People’s lives are at stake’

The sky is falling — at least on Boeing.

A second whistleblower has died under mysterious circumstances, just two months after another one allegedly shot himself in the head — and the attorneys for both men hope their deaths don’t scare away the at least 10 other whistleblowers who want the company to clean up its act.

Joshua Dean, 45, a former quality auditor at Spirit AeroSystems which assembles fuselage sections for Boeing, died Tuesday morning from a fast-growing mystery infection.

Dean’s death comes less than two months after Boeing whistleblower John Barnett, 62, died from an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound on March 9.

Barnett, who had worked for Boeing for 32 years, was found dead in his Dodge Ram truck holding a silver pistol in his hand in the parking lot of his South Carolina hotel after he failed to show up for the second part of his testimony for a bombshell lawsuit against the company.

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United Airline Pilots Know Safety Is An Serious Matter – Now The Public Knows

CDM has been covering United Airlines Covid-19 policies, and exposing its business plan, which financially incentivized covid 19 shots and then when that plan failed, Scott Kirby and the rest of management mandated the shots for all employees, but not for those based overseas. 

When employees filed for religious and medical exemptions when the covid-19 vaccinations were mandated, those who received exemptions were put on “indefinite unpaid leave,” meaning they had no pay checks, no health insurance, no medical insurance and no access to their 401(K) even for financial hardship. 

CMD has hosted two American Conversations with United Airline employees and other airline employees and even some alum who graduated from the Air Force Academy because United Airlines CEO Scott Kirby is an USAF alum. 

Today, one of our sources from another airlines gave us a heads up to a communication from one of United Airlines Pilot Association chapters on the east coast that made management so mad, it was retracted when it reached the C-Suite. 

We are disclosing it in full because it is in the public’s interest to regarding safety measures. 

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Boeing whistleblower found dead in US

A former Boeing employee known for raising concerns about the firm’s production standards has been found dead in the US.

John Barnett had worked for Boeing for 32 years, until his retirement in 2017.

In the days before his death, he had been giving evidence in a whistleblower lawsuit against the company.

Boeing said it was saddened to hear of Mr Barnett’s passing. The Charleston County coroner confirmed his death to the BBC on Monday.

It said the 62-year-old had died from a “self-inflicted” wound on 9 March and police were investigating.

Mr Barnett had worked for the US plane giant for 32 years, until his retirement in 2017 on health grounds.

From 2010, he worked as a quality manager at the North Charleston plant making the 787 Dreamliner, a state-of-the-art airliner used mainly on long-haul routes.

In 2019, Mr Barnett told the BBC that under-pressure workers had been deliberately fitting sub-standard parts to aircraft on the production line.

He also said he had uncovered serious problems with oxygen systems, which could mean one in four breathing masks would not work in an emergency.

He said soon after starting work in South Carolina he had become concerned that the push to get new aircraft built meant the assembly process was rushed and safety was compromised, something the company denied.

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MH370’s suicidal pilot entombed plane and its 239 passengers at bottom of the ocean after perfect ditching, says flight expert 10 years after plane disappeared

The ‘suicidal’ pilot of the MH370 Malaysia Airlines flight perfectly ditched the plane into the sea, entombing it and the 239 passengers aboard at the bottom of the ocean, a flight expert has claimed ten years after it disappeared.

British pilot Simon Hardy has said he believes that the plane was sunk into the ocean at a spot that has never been searched before.

The Boeing 777 aircraft vanished from radar while en route from Malaysia’s capital Kuala Lumpur to Beijing on March 8, 2014. Satellite data showed the plane deviated from its flight path to head over the southern Indian Ocean, where it is believed to have crashed.

There are fears that pilot Captain Zaharie Ahmad Shah, 53, was responsible for deliberately crashing MH370 in a murder-suicide of a shocking scale, which he committed because of problems in his personal life.

Shah had allegedly split with his wife Fizah Khan, and was said to be furious that a relative, opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim, had been given a five-year jail sentence for sodomy shortly before he boarded the plane for the flight to Beijing. But the pilot’s wife has angrily denied any personal problems, while other family members and friends said he was a devoted family man and loved his job.

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MH370 – the mystery that stunned the world: Ten years on, we look at the theories about what happened, the fight for a new search and the clues that hint equally at tragic accident.. or murder

Friday marks ten years since Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 vanished without a trace, tragically becoming one of the world’s great aviation mysteries.

The plane carrying 239 people bound for Beijing disappeared from radar screens on March 8, 2014, shortly after taking off from Kuala Lumpur.

Despite the largest search in aviation history, which combed 46,332 square miles of the sea floor of the southern Indian Ocean, only a few fragments of the Boeing 777-200ER plane have been found, scattered on beaches thousands of miles apart.

The operation was suspended in January 2017.

The families of those who were lost to the abyss have long hoped that by finding the missing plane, authorities would finally be able to give them an answer to the question that has haunted them for a decade: What happened to their loved ones?

In the years since, the void left by the missing wreckage has been filled by speculation and outlandish conspiracy theories, when the fact is that still – after ten years – no one alive today truly knows beyond reasonable doubt what happened.

Hopes were once again raised this week that the question could be answered with the announcement that Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim would be ‘happy to reopen’ the search if ‘compelling’ evidence emerged.

This came after Texas robotics firm Ocean Infinity said it had proposed a new search for the missing jetliner to the Malaysian government while claiming to have new evidence – six years after carrying out an unsuccessful search in 2018.

While it remains to be seen whether a new search will unearth any new clues, the families of the victims remain in limbo. Today, as they mark 10 years since their loved ones were lost, MailOnline looks back at the MH370 tragedy.

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