on Sat, Oct 13, 2001 at 06:07:22PM -0700, Steve Schear (schear@lvcm.com) wrote:

UA flight 1669 from Chicago landed safely about 3:00 pm. Initial reports were of a white powdery substance being released into the air ducts by a man of middle eastern decent. The plane has been surrounded by hazmat crews. The 80+ passengers are still aboard. The air conditioning had been turned off (its in the 90s on the tarmac right now).

I local LE spokesman just got on to say there was no powdery substance released, but rather some confetti from a greeting card. So why are the passengers still aboard?

URL: SJ Mercury News, source: AP. Also a UAL London-DC flight. http://www0.mercurycenter.com/local/center/sjplane1014.htm Plane quarantined at San Jose International Airport SAN JOSE, Calif. (AP) -- About 80 passengers were held aboard a United Airlines jet that arrived Saturday afternoon from Chicago after a man reportedly stood up in mid-flight and released a powdery substance into the air ventilation system. Police, FBI and emergency crews were at the scene setting up a decontamination tent for the passengers of United Airlines Flight 1669 from Chicago. ``There was apparently a report of a middle eastern male who went to the rear of the plane and opened up an envelope. It had some powder in it and it went through the air duct system,'' said San Jose police department spokesman Rubens Dalaison. The witness and the man who allegedly dispersed the powder were taken off the plane and were being decontaminated at about 5:00 p.m. Fire department personnel took air samples from inside the United Airlines Airbus 319 craft to determine if any toxic agents were present, Dalaison said. Airport spokesman Jim Peterson said someone from flight crew radioed ahead to the San Jose tower at about 2:30 p.m. and told them that a witness reported seeing a man open up an envelope and disperse an unknown substance into an air vent. The incident came as anthrax scares spread throughout the United States. In Boca Raton, Fla., five more tabloid employees at the American Media Inc. building tested positive for exposure to anthrax, a company spokesman announced Saturday. At Washington's Dulles International Airport, a spokeswoman said a powdery substance found in a restroom on a United Airlines plane from London was being tested at an Army laboratory in Maryland. Spokeswoman Tara Hamilton said the flight was met Saturday by a hazardous materials team and FBI agents, who determined that 17 people out of 216 passengers and 14 crew members had used the bathroom. The 17 passengers were detained and preliminary decontamination steps were taken on them, which Hamilton said consisted for most part of washing their hands. -- Karsten M. Self http://kmself.home.netcom.com/ What part of "Gestalt" don't you understand? Home of the brave http://gestalt-system.sourceforge.net/ Land of the free Free Dmitry! Boycott Adobe! Repeal the DMCA! http://www.freesklyarov.org Geek for Hire http://kmself.home.netcom.com/resume.html [demime 0.97c removed an attachment of type application/pgp-signature]

According to KPIX at http://beta.kpix.com/news/bcn/2001/10/13/n/HeadlineNews/Update:_Fbi_Says_Gre..., the mysterious substance released on the Chicago - San Jose flight was confetti in a greeting card, and there is no N/B/C danger. -- Greg Broiles gbroiles@well.com "We have found and closed the thing you watch us with." -- New Delhi street kids