Canadian Carry-on Bags Allowed Again on U.S. Flights

Canadians flying to the U.S. can bring one carry-on bag on board again, starting Wednesday. The loosening of restrictions was announced by Transport Canada. Domestic and overseas flights still permit two carry-on bags.

Canada's ban on carry-ons came after the failed bomb attempt Dec. 25 on a Northwest Airlines flight between Amsterdam and Detroit.

Transport Canada also announced it will install full body scanners at airports and introduce a system for screening passengers based on suspicious behaviour.

Along with a carry-on, passengers can bring on board some personal items such as a purse, laptop, crutches and camera bag.

via Carry-on bag allowed again on U.S. flights – thestar.com.

NWA Flight 253 – Passengers Recall Details of Terror Incident

Passengers aboard NWA flight 253 from Amsterdam to Detroit are talking about an apparent failed terror attack and the 23-year-old passenger from Nigeria who they say tried to ignite a powdery substance on board the aircraft. We’ll continue to add additional passenger accounts of the incident as they become available.

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From The Wall Street Journal – Routine Turned to Mayhem on Terror Flight

Seconds after passengers spotted flames climbing above the back of a window seat midway down the left side of Northwest Flight 253, Friday’s routine descent toward Detroit’s main airport turned into horror, mayhem and instant heroism.

Just as the wide-body Airbus A330 made a rumbling sound as the landing gear started down, horrified travelers in seats around the young Nigerian later detained as a terrorism suspect started screaming, according to eyewitness reports by passengers. Flight attendants quickly joined the hubbub around the man in seat 19A, repeatedly screaming “What are you doing?”

There was a pop and then smoke wafted through the cabin. A passenger then climbed over several seats, lunged across the aisle and managed to subdue the suspect, the eyewitnesses said. The Nigerian man was placed in a headlock before being dragged up to the first class cabin. Passenger Zeina Seagal told CNN that after the suspect was collared and parts of his burning pants were removed, flight attendants quickly grabbed fire extinguishers and doused the fire at his seat.

“We saw the fear in the flight attendants eyes” when they ran in the aisles and “grabbed the fire extinguishers,” Michelle Keepman, a passenger who had been seated near the back of the plane, recalled.

Many of those seated further back didn’t initially understand the reason for all the commotion. Roey Rosenblith, a director of a solar-power start up in Uganda, was in seat 38J, near the rear exits, when he heard the sounds of a struggle coming from many rows ahead. “People were yelling and screaming,” he recalled hours later in an interview, sipping a bottle of water at a hotel near the airport.

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From The New York Times – From a ‘Pop’ to a Headlock, Passengers Recall Flight 253

“We heard a pop and the next thing you know it was a fire,” Calvin Kakar, a passenger on Northwest Airlines Flight 253, told The Detroit Free Press. He was among the 278 passengers on a trans-Atlantic flight to Detroit that ended with the arrest of a man who tried to ignite an explosive device in what officials are calling an attempted terrorist attack. Travelers recounted the confusing series of events to news organizations waiting for them at the gate of Detroit Metropolitan Airport.

“It sounded like a firecracker in a pillowcase,” said Peter Smith, who was also quoted by The Free Press.

But after the ignition of the device, the sequence of events as remembered by the passengers grows hazy.

“There was a little bit of light, a little bit of — kind of flamish light and there was fire,” Syed Jafry, who said he was sitting three rows behind the suspect, told CNN. “And people began to panic.”

“There’s a lady shouted, ‘What are you doing? What are you doing?’ ” said Elias Sawaz, in an interview with WXYZ-TV in Detroit.

Some remembered the practical effort to put out the fire.

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Homeland Security To Scan Fingerprints of Foriegn Travellers Exiting US

The US Department of Homeland Security is set to kickstart a controversial new pilot to scan the fingerprints of travellers departing the United States.

From June, US Customs and Border Patrol will take a fingerprint scan of international travellers exiting the United States from Detroit, while the US Transport Security Administration will take fingerprint scans of international travellers exiting the United States from Atlanta.

Biometric technology such as fingerprint scans has been used by US Customs and Border Patrol for several years to gain a biometric record of non-US citizens entering the United States.

But under the Bush Administration, a plan was formulated to also scan outgoing passengers.

Michael Hardin, a senior policy analyst with the US-Visit Program at the United States Department of Homeland Security told a Biometrics Institute conference today that the DHS will use the data from the trial to “inform us as to where to take [exit screening] next.”

“We are trying to ensure we know more about who came and who left,” he said. “We have a large population of illegal immigrants in the United States – we want to make sure the person getting on the plane really is the person the records show to be leaving.”

The original exit scanning legislation planned by the Bush administration stipulated that airlines would be responsible for conducting the exit fingerprints.

But after much protest, Hardin said the new Obama administration re-considered this legislation two weeks ago and is “not as sold that private sector should be agency for exit fingerprints.”

“The new administration feels that perhaps it is more appropriate that Government should take that role.”

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