
source: Haskell Family Blog Jan 3, 2010
-The Man In Orange and the Merry Go Round of Ron Smith/U.S. Customs-
As many of you know, my wife Lori and I were passengers and innocent victims of Northwest Flight 253 (Flight 253). We have repeated our story many times to various reporters, television and radio stations ,both across the country and abroad. Our story has never changed. What I would like to emphasize in this article is that not only did we almost lose our lives in the air, but we also almost lost our lives after our plane landed. Let me explain.
When Flight 253 landed, the passengers were forced to stay on the plane on the runway for 20 minutes. We were forced to do this despite not knowing whether there was a further bomb on our plane held by another passenger, in a carry on bag, or in the cargo hold. This action taken by law enforcement further endangered the lives of every passenger on flight 253.
After we were removed from the plane all of the passengers of flight 253 were taken to an empty baggage claim area of an airport terminal. We all had our carry on bags with us and we stood together for nearly one hour until bomb sniffing dogs arrived. Three dogs arrived, one lab, and two German shepherds. The dogs were split up and one German shepherd sat next to a bag of “the man in orange” who stood 20 feet from me the entire time until he was detained (see my post yesterday for more detail). This man in orange was immediately taken into a room for questioning. He was not handcuffed at this time. After approximately one hour, the man in orange was taken out of that room, handcuffed, and led away. At this exact time, a law enforcement person came up to the group of flight 253 passengers and said the following (approximate quote) “You are all being moved to another area because this are is not safe. You all just saw what happened and I’m sure you are smart enough to read between the lines and figure out what is going on.” We were then escorted out of this baggage claim room and taken to a long narrow hallway. While we were being held in this area, an FBI agent announced the following to us 253 passengers “We have those (Plural) we believe are responsible for this in custody we will now be doing interviews with each of you and then you are free to go.” He went on to state two further references to more than one person, which I cannot specifically quote. I have repeated this exact story hundreds of times since flight 253.
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