Ask the pilot

A full third of the WomansWallStreet.com home page is devoted to the "Terror in the Skies Again?" series, including a list of chronologically arranged links connecting readers to "follow-up information." While my own July 30 column is notably absent, included are click-overs to National Public Radio, the New York Times, and seven separate articles from the right-wing Washington Times, a paper that has, more than any other single source, propagated this affair through continuously vapid coverage.

The latest Washington Times piece borrows select details from Jacobsen's original account, repeating one of her most manipulative observations: "Upon returning to his seat, one man mouthed the word 'no' as he ran his finger across his throat."

Among the letters I've received over the past couple of weeks, several have taken me to task for not bothering with a point-by-point dissection of the musicians' in-flight conduct. Jacobsen presents a theater in which the men engaged in everything short of an onboard decapitation and a Frisbee game down the center aisle: They congregate and socialize; they bring cameras and cellphones into the lavatories; one removes a long skinny object, draped in cloth, from the overhead bin. What do these things mean?

Embedded in each tiny snapshot is a nugget of scary-sounding detail. But that's precisely the narrative's undoing; the entire thing is an out-of-context cheap shot of gratuitous detail. The men brought phones into the toilets? Who cares? Were the phones in their hands, or clipped to their belts? And if the former, what would the point be when all he'd have to do is slip the device into a pocket to conceal it? What of the item wrapped in cloth? An ivory-handled scimitar magically slipped past security? And so forth. It's ridiculous, especially when we accommodate even a small measure of embellishment.

Like any other pilot, and particularly one who answers questions from the general public, I've been privy to countless distorted chronicles from passengers about the last terrible flight they were on. Usually these stories have elaborate, totally implausible details such as the airplane banking upside down, pieces falling off, flight attendants screaming, ad nauseam. Is it not unreasonable that "Terror in the Skies Again?" includes similar fear-induced enhancements and exaggerations? The New York Times reported on Tuesday that, according to witnesses on the flight, and contrary to Jacobsen's statements, the musicians did not stand up after the seat belt light went on, but were already standing, and returned to their seats when asked to by flight attendants. When portions of Jacobsen's account are suspect, why trust the rest?

As for the regurgitation of the man mouthing "no," Jacobsen initially wrote that the men were speaking Arabic. Yet the Arabic word for "no" is "la." When I presented this to Jacobsen a week ago, she stammered and sputtered before contending the men had spoken both English and Arabic. It's also my understanding that the hand-across-the-throat gesture is a custom in parts of the world meaning full, complete or finished.

Next Page: A litany of terror to make us all ashamed

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