Josh Ling @ Adopt Me!

We then waited in the terminal for a further hour or so. One elderly passenger was collapsing from the shock and had to be taken away in a wheelchair, and a bunch of the kids who had been on the flight were traumatized and sobbing.

While waiting in the terminal, I heard one of the flight attendants tell another passenger that the flight crew had been informed that something was wrong on landing, but that they had no information.

Finally, CBP allowed passengers to return to the aircraft in groups of 20 or 30 to retrieve their belongings from the aircraft and their phones from the pile in the jetway (we were told to “be sure it’s yours”).

But how can these facts be reconciled with the explanation that CBP was responding to a threat?

If the call claimed that there was a hijacking, why didn’t CBP check anyone’s identification? Or … ask the flight crew?

If the concern was a bomb threat, why was the plane brought into the terminal, and why were there no emergency vehicles on the ground? And why would they not evacuate the plane as fast as possible, not march through it with rifles?

What justifies separating people from their cellphones at gunpoint, beyond fear of them being able to document abuse of police powers?