Newsweek: several facts on denied KLM flight 685

• Two Saudis on the flight were brothers who had attended the same Arizona flight school as 9/11 hijacker Hani Hanjour.
• Canada did not give permission to land. This directly contradicts a statement from KLM that they had the opportunity to land there, but did not do so (and chose the very expensive option of flying back to Amsterdam) because of the fifteen horses in the cargo hold. Since the Dutch normally make sausages out of horses (the only proper thing to do with them now that we have cars), this story seems to be wearing kinda thin.

Which begs the question: is it true KLM really couldn't have known this plane would be sent back? American immigration has been a bit on edge since 9/11 (before you start flaming, so would Dutch immigration be if we had suffered such an attack), but one can hardly accuse Canada of being overzealous in turning back flights. And the American terrorist watch list has been distributed to virtually all airlines that have American ports of call, including KLM.

Then there's a matter I haven't read about thus far in American papers about Dutch military police taking two people off flight 685 prior to take-off. No further disclosures about that have been made yet, and Dutch journalists have been unable to dig up more information about this. Perhaps foreign journalists will have more success pursuing this matter. (Yes, foreign. I've noticed on several occasions that Dutch PR folk tend to be more forthcoming towards American hacks. For example, after the Van Gogh murder, the LA Times got answers to several questions Dutch press received a 'no comment' on.)

Read the full thing here.

10:23

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