By Debbie Schlussel

****  UPDATE, 12/06/09:  AirTran resorts to attacking passengers and engaging in character assassination to deflect Muslim Dry Run story.  Airline may be sued for defamation. ****

Earlier today, I told you about Chaplain Dr. Keith A. Robinson, another passenger on AirTran Flight 297 from Atlanta to Houston on Tuesday, November 17th, on which passenger Tedd J. Petruna encountered and helped foil eleven Muslim men who were apparently engaged in yet another Islamic terrorism dry run.

It’s no surprise that AirTran, the TSA, and other authorities are circling the wagons and claiming that Petruna’s and, now, Dr. Robinson’s, accounts aren’t true. That’s what they always do. Attack the messenger to block the truth. But I believe Petruna and, now, Robinson. AirTran and the authorities have every motivation to lie. They acted in the best interests of . . .? Well, certainly not their passengers.

As we know, authorities think we shouldn’t know about these things. They don’t want us to panic or to be suspicious of Muslims, when they’re busy doing outreach over shawarmeh at “Ahmed’s Falafel Hut.” But I had the same experience when Detroit Metro Airport police told me a bomb was found on a Northwest flight, which was evacuated, and Northwest denied it. Or when Muslim men were on a Northwest flight from Detroit to Los Angeles and DHS released a report that was mostly redacted (because if it’s redacted, it didn’t happen, right?).

As I told you, prominent Tennessee-based radio talk show host, Steve Gill, conducted a lengthy, in-depth interview with Dr. Robinson, who confirmed everything Mr. Petruna wrote in his e-mail about what happened on that flight.  Reader H.O. transcribed Steve’s interview, which I’d like you to read.  Steve gave me permission to post that transcription here.  Steve is no lightweight or fringe conspiracy theorist.  He’s a major talk radio host in the South (as well as an attorney, professor, and former White House fellow) and asks the tough questions. And his show is nationally syndicated on radio stations across the country.

Radio Talk Show Host Steve Gill Interviews AirTran Flight 297 Passenger Chaplain Dr. Keith A. Robinson:

Steve Gill “. . .Middle Eastern men that were on the plane and that, as they had pulled back from the jetway to taxi to the airport or to the runway. . .that uh, he said two had gotten up and were taking pictures with their cell phones of the other passengers on-in that area. This is while the plane is taxi-ing on the runway. That’s what he said, yes.

Ok, hang on. We are going to talk more. Keith Robinson was there. He’s
relating more of what happened on Flight 297. Air Tran says oh, no. Nothing happened. It was just a misunderstanding. One guy just didn’t shut off his cell phone. Keith Robinson was there, he’s going to give us more of the scoop that the main stream media seems to be ignoring. Well, maybe some of them are starting to catch on. We’ll follow up with Keith Robinson with more on the Steve Gill Show in just a moment.

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Steve Gill: Hey, welcome back again, this is the Steve Gill Show. An incident occured on Air Tran Flight 297 on November 17th on a flight from Atlanta to Houston TX. A Tedd Petruna who works for the National bouancy lab in Houston Tx for NASA accounted for what happened and what he saw on that flight. It has now gone viral all over the internet and despite the fact that AirTran and others that are trying to cleanse the story including the msm are saying that an anonymous e-mail has spread a false rumor. Well, it’s anonymous.

Tedd Petruna is a real guy. I talked to him myself yesterday for quite some time. He has confirmed that everything that he wrote in his e-mail is what he saw. Other passengers are starting to confirm what they saw and experienced It will be interesting to see whether the flight crew will step forward or whether they are being threatened by Air Tran Airlines with their jobs to keep them silent. Another guy who was there, who saw what happened as it happened is Dr. Keith Robinson, a health media consultant and communications specialist, critical incidents response chaplain and he’s relating the story to us here on the Steve Gill show.

Now, Keith, you are telling us that basically as these men were acting up on this, in this group of eleven or twelve people, did anybody tell you who they were, where they were going, what, where they were from? Any of that information come to light, by the way?

Robinson: No, no. There was only, they only spoke Arabic. And uh, so I didn’t understand what they were saying once I came on board, but the people. . .

Steve Gill: they were continuing to talk. One of the things I wanted to get to is that basically the passengers were telling you they were doing gestures like they were going to shoot people, they were refusing to sit down as the plane was taxi-ing to the runway. You don’t do that on any plane anywhere! This business that ‘I didn’t understand ‘ is a bunch of crock!

Robinson: Well, it’s true that the uh, these are abnormal actions that anybody should be making. I mean, we’ve had ministers wives thrown off planes for less than that. Um, so

Steve Gill: Exactly. Christian minister’s wives.

Robinson: Yes, yes.

Steve Gill: So the folks at AirTran are saying that Homeland Security was never involved and that you talked to a man who was supposedly there claiming to be from Homeland Security flashing a badge, claiming that he was there to assess the situation.

Robinson: That’s correct. As I went down the jetway, I met him and relayed to him what the gentlemen had just told me. And he said, well, I’m Homeland Security, that’s my job here.   So, I said, well, I’m a chaplain with the international fellowship of chaplains and this is what we do. So, if I need to help you, let me know. I went ahead and boarded the plane and the new flight crew was on the plane. I’m not sure they were fully briefed as to what they were walking into.

Steve Gill: Now it’s not just that one stewardess left the plane, the entire flight crew that experienced these eleven to twelve muslim men, the entire flight crew said we’re outta here. We’re not flying. And about twelve passengers including Tedd Petruna also got off the plane.

Robinson: That’s correct. That’s correct.

Steve Gill: The people that stayed on and there were what, about sixty folks or so?

Robinson: It looked like there may have been that many. There was only one person that, other than some pilots that were going to make connections probably in other, in Houston, um, had boarded and they sat up towards the front. The only other person that boarded that I saw, was me. And uh, the fella warned me, that I had spoken to, he said, ‘you’re not getting on that plane, are you?’ And I said, well, yes. He said, ‘how come? These guys are doing this stuff?’ And I said, well that’s where chaplains are supposed to be. You know, if they’re upset then, that upset about it, the folks left on that plane are pretty upset too.

Steve Gill: Do you know if that guy you were talking to was Tedd Petruna or another passenger?

Robinson: No. This was another gentleman. This was the first guy that tried to get off the plane and uh, so I continued down. I told the flight attendants I’ll be in the middle of the plane if you need me. If there’s anybody that’s getting close to breaking or something, bring them to me and we’ll go sit and talk and we’ll work through this. And they were pretty concerned already. The flight attendants that got off were sobbing, their faces were red, they were obviously stressed. They could not have flown. They could not have served us. They couldn’t take care of themselves at that point in time. They were so stressed.

Steve Gill: At this point the men were continuing to laugh and behave in kind of a strange way as this continued. Keith, I want you to hang on a second as we take a quick break. There’s more to this story and folks – it gets worse! We’re back in a moment with Keith Robinson who was on flight 297.

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Steve Gill: Welcome back, this is the Steve Gill Show live at the Opryland Gaylord Resort Convention Center in Nashville. I’ll talk a lot about Christmas today, but I’ll also talk about a disturbing  incident aboard an AirTran flight, flight 297 Atlanta to Houston on the afternoon of November 17th. Tedd Petruna, a passenger on that flight has shared what happend in an e-mail that has gone viral. I’ve got that e-mail linked up on our website. We talked with Tedd Petruna personally, myself last night for about 45 minutes and he verifies that everything he had written in his account is exactly accurate and true.

Another passenger who got on that flight after eleven muslim men were brought off and then put back on, twelve passengers including the flight crew, or not including the flight crew decided to get off that flight because of the bizzare behavior of a group of muslim men claiming that they didn’t speak any english and therefore didn’t understand you and couldn’t just walk around the plane while it’s taxi-ing. . . couldn’t continue to use their cell phones and other electronic devices while the plane was taxi-ing while they were being told to put them away by flight attendants. . .that dancing, taking pictures of their fellow passengers and uh, acting, according to some accounts, like they were shooting some of the passengers with guns. Basically doing  everything they could to attack and traumatise and terrorize those on the plane.

AirTran has cleansed the account of the story as has the main stream media, but the truth is starting to come out. And one of those telling us the truth is Dr. Keith Robinson, a health media consultant, communications specialist, a critical incident response chaplain who was aboard the flight as it made it’s way from Atlanta to Houston after a two and a half hour delay because of the guys supposedly not turning off his cell phone.

I would point out, my understanding, Keith, is that AirTran is kind of like Southwest Airlines, you get (??) seating, you sit wherever you want. And when this group of eleven men got on the plane initially, they put themselves throughout the plane and according to Tedd Petruna’s account, at one point, one of the guys in the very front of the plane called one of the guys in the middle of the plane on his cell phone and they were having conversations. Again, they didn’t sit as a group, they spread out through the plane, just like the 9/11 hi-jackers had done.

Robinson: Yeah, there was a group that was in the front of the airplane and then another group that was towards the back of the airplane and I tried to, as soon as I saw this starting, I took out my laptop and began to write what you have seen.

Steve Gill: Yeah, I’ve got that linked up on our website by the way. Keith Robinson’s account at GillReport.com click on the Daily Notes button. It’s there along with Tedd Petruna’s e-mail account. You can read all the details there and you were literally writing this as it happend, right Keith?

Robinson: That’s correct. That’s uh, years ago, I had my own nationally syndicated radio talk show and so I knew that I could forget things very quickly if I didn’t start writing it down and perceiving what was going on . And most of the people, when most of these men had gone into a stoic kind of um, appearance. They had already been taken off. Somebody had talked to them. Their luggage had been gone through and put them back on. And, but as I entered the plane, it was, you could feel the tension that everyone in the plane. You could, nobody would make eye contact. Eyes were down, The biggest active part of this, went on before I got on.

Steve Gill: And yet, even as the flight continued with you, you report that they would suddenly start speaking loudly in Arabic and then a burst of laughter would erupt and they would still, you thought be toying with the emotions of the people aboard the flight.

Robinson: Well, yeah, they would get up in the overhead compartments and pull down backpacks and pull out, you know, things that may have been recorders or something like that. It looked like an electronic device, You see . . .

Steve Gill: And moving things around. Moving things from one part of the plane, moving it up to the luggage compartment in the front of the plane inexplicably – for no good reason.

Robinson: Well, and that’s true. You see, one of the things that just happened beforehand was  Fort Hood. So, a lot of Americans, most of America, probably are still on edge about the fact that the shooting went on there. So many people were already on edge. Now, whenever, when I got on I tried to assess, as I was walking down the aisle, how people were doing. And there was one or two people who started showing, you know, a little agitation, getting up walking back and forth during the flight. But they eventually settled down, sat down and I um, went to the back of the plane so that I could watch what was going on in front of us in case we needed to do something. There was a lot of prayer going on in the back of that plane. Let me let you know that . . .

Steve Gill: Yes, you pointed that out in your piece, it was radiating inside and outside of the plane. Has anybody from AirTran or Homeland Security, did they conduct an investigation. You guys got to Houston, everybody apparently went their own way. Any follow up investigation? Did you talk to anybody? Did anybody ask you any questions about this?

Robinson: No. Not a bit. Not a bit.

Steve Gill: So this claim that AirTran did an investigation is first of all an outright lie if they don’t talk to the passengers that were on that plane.

Robinson: Well, it certainly raises questions as to how that investigation was done. I’m concerned though, that the people that went through this event, see if they go through a perceived life threatening event, may develop post traumatic stress, that could be a post traumatic stress disorder after a certain time and I would think that the airline would want to follow these people. Because if they develop this, then, you know, it points back to the event itself.

Steve Gill: Now, so far, Petruna’s e-mail got this ball rolling. Your piece is now getting some attention. I know there has been intense media attention, I mean, Tedd’s getting e-mails and phone calls like no-body’s business because his actual work information has put him at risk of losing his job at NASA. They’ve pretty much told him to shut up or he’s going to get fired because of telling the truth about this incident. I mean, obviously you’re getting contacted by other media outlets likeme and others. Have you heard from any other passengers? Arer other passengers going to speak up? Do we know anything about the flight crew?

Robinson: I have not heard a thing from anyone else. I have received e-mails and spoken to other pilots that, asking if this was true, trying to check the credibility of the people writing this and in relating some of their own concerns that they’ve seen also. This appears to be

Steve Gill: The problem is this looks like one of those e-mails that gets distributed, you know, anonymously, and don’t know whether it’s true and that’s how AirTran is trying to say ‘an anonymous e-mail account’. No, Tedd Petruna’s a real guy. His name is on it. Your name is on it. You are willing to talk about it. The  media is just no focusing on getting the truth about it.

Robinson: Well, I believe that may be changing and we may be able to thank your organization for opening up and getting it out there because they have got to do something with it. America has got to figure out how they are going to deal with this type of what I’m calling “ethnic bullying’. It’s uh, we are we are still in a 9-12 mentality and we should be. We should be at a condition yellow so that we are aware of what is going on around us. But the question is how do we as Americans stand together to not let people think that we’re scared – first – because I think that if we let them know that we are scared we invite this stuff.

Steve Gill: That’s part of what’s happening. AirTran had an incident where they took nine muslims off a plane January 1st. they got castigated by the Council on American Islamic Relations, they got attacked, they were threatened with law suits. The same thing with the six muslim imams who were behaving strangely in Minnesota. They ended up suing their fellow passengers, suing the airport authority, suing the airline. They’ve been cowed into silence in the same way that Major Hasan was able to proceed with nobody able to do anything despite all the red flags – because they didn’t want to look like a bigot. And that’s what we have playing out here as well.

Robinson: Well, and it’s important that we focus our attention on the people that are doing this and not – because I’ve seen many wonderful muslim people and middle easterners. There are many very good ones.  And a few that are radicalized are really giving a lot of problems to everybody else. But I think even they are scared to bring this up because you’d think they’d say, ‘hey, stop doing that! You’re giving our whole religion a bad name!’

Steve Gill: Yeah, ignoring the risks, doesn’t make us any safer. You know, obviously, you’re willing to speak out. Are you going to be doing more appearances? I mean Fox News, those kinds of guys? Have you talked to them yet?

Robinson: I have spoken to them. I just got off . . the initial story was done by KHOUTV channel 2I here in Houston. They spoke to me just before I went on the air with you and want to do an interview to kind of get the rest of the story. And so, they are going to revisit this as well. And I think that’s good journalism. I think that’s good journalism to go back into it and say gosh, maybe we didn’t get everything we needed to.

Steve Gill: Especially because the initial story was based on what the AirTran spokesman said and that’s basically that they, you know, they had a guy that didn’t shut off his cell phone and it caused a two and a half hour delay. I mean, that’s pretty much the sanitised version and that is far from what actually  happened on this flight. And they also don’t identify the group, they mention that there was a group of men,  you know, everybody kind of, in the media goes ‘I wonder if they were Arab men?” ‘I wonder if they were muslim men?’ Well, the answer is YES, they were.

Robinson: THere’s one difference that I observed and that is in Tedd’s, what he wrote, he eluded to the fact that they were in traditional garb. I didn’t see that. I saw, you know, the guys were wearing slacks and shirt like we would wear. And um, so you know, I did not see them overtly dressed so thtat you could tell. Their skin color, the way that they talked is the way they gave away where they were from. But uh, everything else that Tedd said rings, rings very true.

Steve Gill: I know that yesterday, after we detailed this story, we got several calls from airline commercial pilots saying they are not seeing the size of this group but they see similar instances where, you know, two or three muslim men, Arab men doing what appear to be a test probe or a test run. They’re being told by the airlines, we’re being told by the authorities, don’t talk about it, you know, shut up about it. That’s what you’re hearing. I understand that’s what Tedd has heard about it from other pilots as well. That this is not an isolated incident.

Robinson: Well, it doesn’t seem to be. I guess the thing, that as a chaplain, the thing that it tells me to do is that we need to first – we don’t want to live in fear. We are, our forefathers fought and bled in order for us to have the freedoms that we’ve got. What I see is that the people feel like we are tearing chunks of America away and we’re giving it away. That it’s not the same America. And that it can be the same America if we, as the citizens of this America start saying, look, this is our place. These are the things that we do and we are going to stand together.

So I think we’ve still got great strength if we go inside and we remember where we came from. We remember we’ve still got God working with us. You know, a lot of us pushed him out of the schools, pushed him out of our lives. He’s still back there, still working. I  see miracles all the time in my work as a chaplain. We still got much to draw upon for our strength. We just cannot live in fear. You know, bullying, whether it happens on a playground or whether it happens in the home of a domestic violence case, living under a repression is worse than death. It’s worse than death. This is not the worst thing that can happen to you. But it’s time that we remember our heritage. Remember . . .

Steve Gill: Remember and stand up and speak out. Dr. Keith Robison, a media health consultant, communications specialist, critical incidents response chaplain – his account of what happened on AirTran Flight 297 is at Gill Report dot com. Click on the daily notes button and scroll right down and read his account. Tedd  Petruna, another of the passengers on that flight. If you’ve gotten the e-mail, if you’ve seen it and wondered if this is true.

Uh, YEAH, yeah, it is true. We’ve dug into this story. I’ve talked to Tedd Petruna, you’ve heard it from Keith Robinson, others will maybe come forth. Maybe the pilot, maybe the crew, maybe some of the other passengers will finally come forth and share their stories as well. Thanks for being with us and keep  spreading the word. Keep spreading the Gospel, my friends. You betcha. God bless you. 800-688-9522.

You can also send your comments via e-mail Steve@gillreport.com Why is the mainstream media sanitizing  this story. Why is TSA, AirTran, why are they covering up the truth if nothing really happend on flight 297?
We’re back in a moment. I’m Steve Gill. News Radio 1510 WLAC

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Steve Gill: Hey welcome, this is the Steve Gill Show 800-688-9522. You can also send your comments in via e-mail Steve@gillreport.com

I know hearing that account of that flight, AirTran Flight 297 you’re going, nah, surely not! How can they cover this stuff up? Well, that’s why we wanted to let you hear the voices of those who were there that can say this is what I saw, rather than the cleansed government version of what happened. Then go to our report at the GillReport.com, find the daily notes button. It’s the top story.

You’ve got the account of Tedd Petruna who was on the plane. You’ve  read his account. There’s Keith Robinson. His account is also available to you there as well. And uh, I’ve got to tell you, I’m hearing from pilots, I’m hearing from other folks, passengers on planes that are seeing these same sort of dry run, test terrorism cases perhaps that are happening. If you see something strange – SPEAK UP.

Contrary to Keith Robinson, if I see the flight crew get up and say I’m not flying this plane because it’s not safe, I’m getting off the plane. I’m getting off the plane. I know Keith stayed because he said “I’m a chaplain, this is what chaplains do”. Um, you know, if you were in front of me, you would have been behind me quickly as I would have been getting off of the plane. In any event, go to the website if you want to read more of the details. Also, we want to give you a little bit more insight. We’re at Gaylord Opryland Resort convention Center. We’re doing our Christimas show. It’s not really our Christmas show, but it’s sort of the kick off of the Christmas show and . . . .

end transcript relevant to the AirTran Flight 297 story.