Also Charged With Making Post-9/11 Bomb Threat
A 23-year old ComAir
flight attendant has been indicted on charges he tried to crash a
commuter aircraft. A federal grand jury indicted Turhan Jamar
Lamons yesterday, charging him with setting a fire in the lavatory
of ComAir Flight 5491 on May 8. The 50-passenger Bombardier CRJ was
on a run from Atlanta (GA) to Huntsville (AL) when it made an
emergency landing in Rome (GA). No one was injured. The
aircraft was evacuated and investigators later found bits of
partially burned newspaper in the lav.
That's not all.
Lamons is also charged with phoning a gate at Hartsfield
International Airport in Atlanta just six days after the 9/11
terror attacks and telling the attendant the AirTran flight there
would be blown up in the air. "All passengers aboard Flight 278 are
going to die," the caller said. The AirTran flight was evacuated
and searched. Nothing was found. Police later said Lamons had
called in the threat from his cell phone because his request for a
day off had been turned down and he simply didn't want to fly. A
Clayton County (GA) threw out the charges in October, 2001, but a
local grand jury was able to piece together enough evidence to
indict Lamons last April.
Now, here's the real question.
Lamons was indicted in
April, yet he was still flying for ComAir. In fact, it means ComAir
hired him while he was still under investigation for the September
2001 incident. Why didn't ComAir, the FAA, the TSA, the FBI, the
Georgia Bureau of Investigation or anyone else pause to check
Lamons's background?
A ComAir spokesman tells the Atlanta
Journal-Constitution the airline was unaware of the
investigation when it hired Lamons in August, 2002. Even though the
grand jury indicted Lamons in April, he continued to fly for ComAir
and now stands accused of trying to burn down Flight 5491.
Carter Morris, a spokesman for the American Association of
Airport Operators, says the FBI sends a full background check on
potential employees to the airlines. What happens after that, says
Morris, is up to the carrier. ComAir spokesman Nick Miller told the
Atlanta paper that the airline constantly reviews its hiring and
security procedures with help from the TSA and the FBI.
Repeating: In the midst
of all these background checks and super-tight security, why
was Lamons allowed to crew for ComAir?
"We conducted a very, very stringent review in the aftermath of
the May 8 incident," says Miller in Friday's
Journal-Constitution. He says, after the incident, the
backgrounds of all 5,500 ComAir employees were rechecked.
Yeah, but why was he allowed to work for ComAir in the first
place? (Perhaps asking a third time's the charm?)
Miller says a grand jury indictment may not be enough to
disqualify a job candidate. He says only convictions for crimes
like murder, spying, treason, or conveying false threats would
automatically kick an application like Lamons' into File 86. Miller
tells the Atlanta newspaper, flight attendants "go through all
federally mandated background checks that all other airline
employees do."
Yeah, but then how…
Aw, forget it for now. But you can bet we'll remember this
the next time we have to take off our belts and shoes at the
terminal security checkpoint.
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