Cayman Airways Emergency Landing

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Contact photographer Joey Collura

What: United Airlines Boeing 757-200 en route from Washington to Denver
Where: 157 passengers and 6 crew
When: 7 pm
Who: 157 passengers and 6 crew members;
The individual who was detained is Mohammed al Modadi, a diplomat in the Qatar embassy in Washington, D.C.
Why: When an on board air marshal smelled smoke, he confronted the passenger in the first class bathroom. Mohammed al Modadi, who was apparently sneaking a smoke in the bathroom, declared diplomatic immunity and made a sarcastic declaration regarding Richard Reid.

Modadi was escorted to his seat and rode the rest of the flight flanked by two air marshals.

Two F-16 fighter jets escorted the flight the last 40 miles to Denver where Modadi was taken into custody.

No explosives were found.

In this case, it requires looking closely at the actions. Some logical points are given:

1. Smoking is not allowed.
2. The air marshals were doing their job.
3. There is a time and place for everything. Standing in a plane’s bathroom after smoking a cigarette in a world where real people are really trying to blow up planes is not the place to make a shoe-bomb joke to a nervous air marshal. Even if one is a diplomat. Especially if one is a diplomat.
4. Diplomats are generally expected to smooth over or prevent international incidents, not cause them. (On the other hand, what exactly is Modadi’s job description, and exactly what is he supposed to do?)
5. This time the plane did not blow up.

Anything beyond this is speculation. I am sure the aviation lawyers and the aviation lawmakers will be hotly discussing this event, to see exactly how diplomatic status will affect policy, and playing the “what if” game. What if Modadi was just testing to see what would happen? What if there’s another diplomat biding his time for when we lower our guard, waiting to do this for real?

Whether a diplomat is a political officer to advocate for Qatar interests, a trade officer to advocate for Qatar interests, or a consular officer providing services for Qatar travelers, one can reasonably expect that Modadi’s agenda for today did not include deliberately getting caught sneaking a smoke in the United Airlines lavatory, nearly causing an international incident or providing puppet comedian Jeff Dunham grist for his “Achmed the dead terrorist” character for the next ten years. If Modadi has enough character and charm to jockey his ten minutes of fame into something more, we just may even see him as the new face of the nicotine patch or some other smoking cessation method or remedy.

On the other hand, we can not forget that there are people out there who wait for us to drop our guard so the next suicidal bomber can make his vicious mark.