Accuses Airline Of Racial Profiling, Seeks Legal Help In Online Rant

If you fly to Oshkosh next year aboard a United Airlines flight, whatever you do, don't get caught reading any books about aircraft. Apparently, that makes you a terrorist suspect.

Vance Gilbert (pictured), a musician, says he boarded United Airlines Flight 3483 from Boston to Dulles on time and was seated in an aisle seat on the Embraer 170. On his website, he says he had a fanny pack behind his legs, and a flight attendant asked if he would put it in the overhead bin. He says he told her he'd prefer to stow it under the seat in front of him, and did so without incident. Then, he opened and started reading a book about Polish Aircraft of the 1940s.

In Gilbert's own words, things went downhill from there. "The plane went all the way out to the take-off point, in the queue for take-off. All the while I noticed a lot of phone pinging back and forth between the flight attendants. The plane then proceeded to turn around and head all the way back to the gate. The Captain announced, 'We have a minor issue, and we will continue our departure once it's resolved.' He left the aircraft.

"After about 5 - 10 minutes, 2 Mass State Policemen, 1 or 2 TSA Agents, and the bursar for the flight come down the aisle and motion me to get off of the plane. I do not remember if they called me by name. We stepped out into the breezeway where one of the State policemen asked how I was doing that day."

Long-story-short, by the time the authorities figured out Gilbert had been singled out not for studying how to sabotage an E170, but for his antique aircraft hobby, he was allowed back on the flight, but missed his connection, which cost him money to rent a car to make his gig. He comments, "I silently wept the whole flight to DC. I've never been so frightened or humiliated. I'm shaking even writing this. How much money was lost between the airline, the other travelers? - I couldn't begin to calculate. How damaged am I from this experience? I'm not feeling particularly American. I'm angry, dumbfounded, frightened."

On his website, Gilbert is openly soliciting for a hungry lawyer who'd like to get involved, and making this out to be racial profiling. United is blaming its codeshare partner. Airline spokesman Charles Hobart emailed a statement to the Boston Globe which says, in part, "The service Mr. Gilbert described does not reflect the experience we aim to deliver our customers. We are reaching out to Mr. Gilbert and to Shuttle America, the United Express carrier that operated the flight, to better understand what occurred and to ensure Mr. Gilbert knows we value his business."

FMI: www.vancegilbert.com