December 3 2001

ARTICLE TOOLS

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Next they'll ban the sword of the Lord. An American Airlines passenger in Los Angeles tried to use the plane's intercom to lead other passengers in prayer before takeoff. If his prayer was not to fly, it was answered. American ejected him from the October 10 flight—but didn't press charges and even refunded his ticket.

"It's quite all right to pray individually, but what he did alarmed a number of other people on board," said American Airlines spokesman Dale Morris. Three days later, a Delta plane flying from Atlanta to Newark made an emergency landing in Charlotte, North Carolina. The reason? Two men had huddled together in the back of the plane, speaking a foreign language. When the plane landed and police boarded the plane, they discovered the nefarious plot: two Jewish men had been praying in Hebrew.

See The Charlotte Observer's coverage of theflight diverted to Charlotte because of the prayer scare.

Last month, Ted Olsen interviewed an O'Hare airport chaplain on airline travel since September 11.