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JetBlue Flight 191 had to make an emergency landing today in Amarillo, Texas. The flight was en route to Las Vegas from New York’s JFK when a man—allegedly the flight’s captain—got out of the restroom “foaming at the mouth” and screaming.
According to witnesses, the captain left the restroom screaming there was a bomb on board and proceeded to bang the cockpit’s door. He then started to run down the aisle screaming “say your prayers, say your prayers” until four passengers—including a retired NYPD sergeant—restrained him.
Another JetBlue captain on the flight then took his place in the cockpit and landed the plane safely at 10:11am. Ambulances were waiting on the runway. What seems like a Cobra helicopter is also next to the plane on the ground, but it’s not clear if it was already there or dispatched to Amarillo after the emergency was declared.
The airplane was a Airbus A320, which holds 150 passengers. There’s no details about how many passengers were on the flight, which departed today from Terminal 5 at John F. Kennedy International Airport at 7:28 am today.
Connect Amarillo has posted the following official statement from JetBlue:
Flight 191 departed New York’s JFK airport at 7:28 am ET (was scheduled to depart 6:55 am ET). At roughly 10 am CT/11 am ET, the pilot in command elected to divert to Amarillo, TX for a medical situation involving the Captain. Another Captain, traveling off duty, entered the flight deck prior to landing at Amarillo, and took over the duties of the ill Crewmember once on the ground. The aircraft arrived Amarillo at 10:11 am CT, and the crewmember was removed from the aircraft and taken to a local medical facility.
Customers remain on board at this time. JetBlue is working with local authorities and airport officials for the safe deplaning of the aircraft. JetBlue will send a new aircraft to continue the flight to LAS.
Update: There’s a second video from another passenger. FoxNY also has a description from a passenger: “I saw a guy wearing a pilot’s uniform run down the aisle screaming and yelling and banging on the cockpit door to let him in.”
Update 2: Another video from the outside of the plane, after the emergency landing. Notice the Cobra helicopter next to the airplane.
Update 3: Talking to Jalopnik, JetBlue Flight 191 passenger Grant Heppes said that the captain was screaming “pray with me!” and “Iran!” and “Iraq!” before the passengers tackled him. People starting to yell “Restrain him! Restrain him!” He also claims that he was told that the co-pilot thought the captain “wasn’t right” and convinced him to leave the cockpit. After he was outside, Heppes claims the co-pilot made an announcement asking to restrain the captain.
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Mar 27
The leading opponents of same-sex marriage planned to defeat campaigns for gay marriage by “fanning the hostility” between black voters from gay voters and by casting President Obama as a radical foe of marriage, according to confidential documents made public in a Maine court today.
The documents, circulated by the gay rights group Human Rights Campaign, are marked “confidential” and detail the internal strategy of the National Organization for Marriage.
“The strategic goal of this project is to drive a wedge between gays and blacks—two key Democratic constituencies,” says an internal report on 2008 and 2009 campaigns, in a section titled the “Not A Civil Right Project.”
“Find, equip, energize and connect African American spokespeople for marriage, develop a media campaign around their objections to gay marriage as a civil right; provoke the gay marriage base into responding by denouncing these spokesmen and women as bigots,” advises the document.
The document also targets Hispanic voters, whom conservatives have long hoped would join the backlash against gay rights. Full story here!
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Feb 28
For over 20 years, UC Berkeley professor Peter Duesberg has believed that HIV does not cause AIDS, an opinion that he says has limited his academic career and alienated him from the scientific community.
“You cannot find the (HIV) virus, only antibodies, and it doesn’t spread via sex as it should,” Duesberg said. “HIV is a harmless virus. I have said that before, and I continue to say it.”
The tenured professor of molecular and cell biology — who said he has been called “homophobic” and a “mass murderer” in the past for his beliefs — elicited further controversy after the publication of his most recent article in a scientific journal sparked the resignation of a member of the journal’s editorial board.
Near the end of January, Klaudia Brix of Jacobs University in Germany resigned from the board of the Italian Journal of Anatomy and Embryology in protest of the December publication of Duesberg’s article, entitled “AIDS since 1984: No evidence for a new, viral epidemic — not even in Africa.”
“It’s just propaganda that they’re dying from AIDS,” Duesberg said.
The article compares statistical evidence of AIDS deaths in Uganda and South Africa to the overall population growth of those countries and sub-Saharan Africa as a whole. The article then concludes that AIDS has not caused a large number of deaths in Africa.
“We deduce from this demographic evidence that HIV is not a new killer virus,” the article states.
However, Arthur Reingold, professor of epidemiology and associate dean for research at the UC Berkeley School of Public Health, said that Duesberg’s beliefs run counter to a core tenet held by the medical community.
“The HIV virus is the cause of AIDS,” Reingold said. “It is a well-established scientific fact going back 30 years. Every credible scientist in the world believes that to be a scientific fact.”
Three years after the announcement of the discovery of the AIDS virus in 1984, Duesberg published an article denying that HIV is the cause of AIDS.
He has since argued that AIDS results from recreational drug use and has advised those with the disease not to take antiretroviral drugs.
“I tell people, by all means, stop taking these drugs — they haven’t cured anybody yet,” Duesberg said.
In 2000, Duesberg sat on a panel which advised then-President of South Africa Thabo Mbeki about the cause of the AIDS virus. Mbeki later denied that AIDS was caused by a virus and limited the treatments in the country, leading to about 330,000 deaths, according to a study published in the Journal of Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndromes.
Other AIDS researchers rebuke Duesberg’s arguments as the spread of misinformation.
“People who deny the causality of AIDS are denying reality,” said Jeff Sheehy, director for communications at the UC San Francisco AIDS Research Institute, in an email. “I know individuals infected with HIV who are dead because they believed denialists and … initiated treatment too late to save their lives.”
Although Duesberg’s research has largely been restricted to small journals, he has published over 20 articles, three of those in Science, and a book on the virus, according to his website.
However, an article he authored was retracted from the Medical Hypothesis Journal in 2009 due to its inclusion of “opinions that could potentially be damaging to global public health,” a statement from the journal said. The article led to a campus investigation of Duesberg that was dropped a year later.
Despite this exposure, Duesberg said his beliefs have limited his academic career on campus. He has been teaching a laboratory course since 1987 and claims he was restricted by other faculty from giving a lecture for more than 20 years.
“I never got to teach a course in my field until recently,” Duesberg said, referring to the lecturing position he was given in the fall semester of 2009. “My colleagues didn’t trust me.”
G. Steven Martin, chair of the campus department of molecular and cell biology, declined to comment on Duesberg’s role in the department.
Despite overwhelming opposition, Duesberg — who first won acclaim as co-discoverer of the first viral cancer gene and for mapping the genetic structure of retroviruses — does claim to have had some success in his research on AIDS.
“I get tons of letters saying ‘thank you, your research has changed my life,’” he said.
Going forward, Duesberg plans to pursue cancer research, lessening his focus on AIDS.
“You try to make your case as good you can, and I think I’ve done that,” he said. “I have said what I can say — I don’t think I can do too much more.”
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