Pax Objected To Iraqi Males Speaking Arabic Prior To Boarding

An American Airlines flight was forced to miss San Diego's Lindbergh Field's 11:30 curfew Tuesday night because of a passenger conflict.

American Airlines spokesman Tim Wagner told San Diego Union-Tribune that Flight 590 to Chicago O'Hare International Airport was supposed to have departed at 11:00 pm, but had to be rescheduled for the next day at 10:15 am.

Televised reports said a group of six male Iraqi-Americans were speaking Arabic to each other, and fellow passengers complained it made them uncomfortable.

After boarding and while taxiing out for departure, someone with a child reportedly changed their mind about flying at that particular time. The pilot had to turn around, and pulled up to the gate at 11:26.

By that time the airport's 11:30 pm curfew had fallen and prevented the plane from taking off, Wagner said. This meant passengers had to be put up for the night and rescheduled for the next day.

Some media reports say police were called and met the plane at the gate. Wagner said no passengers were selectively removed from the aircraft.

Passenger Christine Zugay said she did not see or hear any altercation after boarding but other passengers spoke of a woman and a child who had left the flight.

An Associated Press report said the six Iraqi men worked for Defense Training Systems, a unit of International Logistics Services, and had been training Marines at Camp Pendleton.

"We were hired for this Government. We can prove ourselves. We are good people, not a bad people," said Dave Alwatan one of the men in the group. Alwatan is a US citizen.

"How can we be bad if we are helping our people here -- American people? Why are we getting treated like that?" he told ABC-7 Chicago.

Ahmed Rehab, executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations in Chicago, was not pleased with about the airline's actions.

"It is one thing to flag suspicious behavior, but to flag a global language? We are deplaning people for who they are, not what they do," he said.

"For us it was a customer dispute," Wagner said. "We prefer to handle these issues on the ground."

The Transportation Safety Administration did not get involved, said spokesperson Nico Melendez.

The defense contractor CEO, Dave Stephens, said "They did nothing wrong." Stephens said Wednesday and called the incident "an unfortunate situation for all flight passengers."

FMI: www.san.org, www.aa.com, www.defensetrainingsystems.com