Three arrested after LV-bound plane diverted

Jace Radke

Thursday, Sept. 12, 2002 | 11:17 a.m.

Three passengers on a Northwest Airlines flight bound for Las Vegas were arrested Wednesday in Fort Smith, Ark., after the flight was diverted due to concerns about their suspicious behavior.

Flight 979 left Memphis, Tenn., at 8:47 a.m. and finally arrived at McCarran International Airport just before 5 p.m. Wednesday.

Pat Jordan, a Birmingham, Ala., resident and passenger on Flight 979, didn't know exactly what was going on when the plane unexpectedly landed in Fort Smith, but he did know something didn't feel right.

"It's Sept. 11 and there are people on the plane who aren't listening to stewardesses, walking around, talking in a different language and just acting suspicious," Jordan said. "They could be completely innocent, but we're at war and you don't act like that on a plane."

Harinder P. Singh, 41, Alaaeldin M. Abdelsalam, 37, and Gurbeep S. Wander, 47, were taken off the plane in Fort Smith. After being questioned, they were arrested and charged with interfering with a flight crew. The Associated Press reported that two of the men were from India and the third was from Egypt. The U.S. attorney's office in Fort Smith did not immediately return calls to confirm that.

A fourth passenger, Las Vegas resident Carlos Nieves, 35, was also questioned by the FBI. He was released and was scheduled to arrive in Las Vegas today.

The FBI has not commented specifically on what the three men who were arrested were doing on the Memphis-to-Las Vegas flight, but passengers on the plane say they were acting strangely.

Passengers said that the men got on the plane just before it left Memphis and were sitting in separate areas of the Airbus A320. Once in the air, one of the men went to a bathroom in the back of the plane and began shaving his chest, while the other two walked up and down the aisles before congregating in the back of the plane, passengers said.

"They were back there, and the guy in the bathroom came out with his shirt off," said Terry Richardson, a Gulfport, Miss., resident. "The stewardess asked them to sit down and they wouldn't. It was making some people nervous."

Other passengers reported seeing one of the men talking on a cell phone in a foreign language, and mentioning Memphis, Las Vegas and Flight 979 in English.

Some passengers said that flight attendants asked them to keep an eye on the men.

"I can tell you one thing, if they would have moved toward the cockpit of that plane they wouldn't have made it," Jordan said.

The three passengers who were arrested are scheduled to appear before a federal magistrate today in Arkansas, and could face up to 20 years in prison for the felony charge of interfering with a flight crew.

Special Agent Daron Borst, spokesman for the Las Vegas office of the FBI, said that the strange incident did not appear to be related to terrorism.

"At this time the incident appears to be the result of alleged passenger misconduct and has no connection to terrorist activity," Borst said.

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