Back almost three months ago there was a viral email stir kicked off by a guy named Ted Petruna who claimed to have singlehandedly thwarted a Muslim terrorist hijacking attempt on an AirTrain flight out of Atlanta. The tale had Muslim men “in full attire” preparing to hijack the plane but taking advantage of their alleged special pre-jihad right to watch porn before they got down to business. And there was a weird series of arguments and altercations before Petruna and an unnamed fellow passenger swung into action to put the would-be hijackers in their place and saved the day.
The right-wing blogs had a field day claiming a government cover-up of the terrorist hijacking “dry run” before some rather glaring inconsistencies began to emerge in Petruna’s story. Like, for one, that Petruna was apparently not even on the plane.
TPMMuckraker has now obtained new FAA documents from the investigation of the incident. And as expected, no porn, no hijacking and no Ted Petruna. But something did happen on that flight.
Justin Elliott has the details.
