“[She was] biting her fingers, rubbing her feet and in a constant state of movement. She appeared very agitated...”
Submitted for your edification, a woman dressed in a Rolling Stone T-shirt, black pants, and socks without shoes – presumably kept by some overzealous TSA screener like the one Kathy Griffin plays in that Sierra Mist commercial – when she appeared in federal court last August [17].
Catherine C. Mayo
I'm referring to Catherine C. Mayo, 59, of Braintree VT who single-handedly set in motion a series of events which caused a trans-Atlantic flight from London to Washington DC to be diverted to Boston's Logan Airport, its 182 passengers and luggage off-loaded, and American cable news networks to shift into overdrive to out-scoop one another on what at first blush appeared to be a terrorist plot.
In defense of the "news" purveyors, all of this occurred in the aftermath of the alleged plot to blow up nine US-flag airliners over the Atlantic uncovered by British and Pakistani law enforcement and intelligence officals just days before. At that time, 23 people in the United Kingdom and 17 people in Pakistan have been arrested in connection with the alleged plot. The United Kingdom raised its terror alert level to "critical", its highest level. The US government raised its terror alert level to "red" on trans-Atlantic flights between the UK and the US and to "orange" on all other flights, including domestic flights. Both countries also severely restricted items which could be brought into airplane cabins, including liquids, gels, and electronic devices.
On the day of United Flight 923, CNN, MSNBC and FOX News Channel (FNC), bent over backwards to report "breaking news" on the diverted flight. We learned that the flight's captain requested F-15 fighter escort as the flight was re-routed to Boston. At least one of the three cable outlets, while displaying local news video showing the cargo hold being unloaded to the tarmac and examined by bomb-sniffing dogs, reported that carry-on luggage was being examined by those dogs. This despite the view that it was clearly checked luggage being examined. The cable news nets also reported a Logan airport official saying that Mayo had “a cigarette lighter, a screwdriver, and a note referencing Al-Qaida.” Some time later, federal officials denied that these items were found on Ms. Mayo. Approximately, six hours into the story, MSNBC revived the Jon-Benet Ramsey murder case and little was heard about United Flight 293 anymore.
Now, thanks to the Associated Press, eyewitness accounts published in The Telegraph of Alton, IL, and an affadavit filed in Federal court on 17 August and heavily incorporated into this essay, what happened aboard United Flight 923 has become somewhat clearer.
Carolyn Brown of Grafton, IL had the seat next to Ms. Mayo. According to Ms. Brown, “When I got on the plane, this person was already there. She was just sitting there. … After some time sitting there, [Mayo] said, ‘I think you ought to know I'm claustrophobic, ’” Brown recalled. “She said, ‘I'm going to have to get up, and I have a whole procedure I have to do to settle myself down.’ I said, ‘I don't sleep much on planes, so you won't disturb me if you have to get up.’”
According to The Telegraph, Ms. Brown said the flight left at 8 a.m. London time and that they ate breakfast about 90 minutes into the flight. She said that after they ate, Mayo got up.
“She went toward the back of the plane,” Brown said. “I saw her standing in the aisle with her hands on the bulkhead – kind of spread eagle. One of the flight attendants told her she had to sit down. She argued, ’I can't. I have to do this. I'm claustrophobic.’ They said, ‘Sorry, ma'am, you cannot stand here.’ They got her back in the seat, but she continued to banter with them. They said, ‘You have to sit down.’ She said, ‘If I can't stand up and do it in there, I'm going to do it on the exit door.’’
The Telegraph account continues with Ms. Brown saying that she didn't know what Mayo meant by “do it” but thinks Mayo's last statement is what raised the flight crews' security suspicions. Said Ms. Brown, “she was irrational.”
The affadavit, attested to by FBI Special Agent Daniel Choldin, assigned to the Joint Terrorism Task Force in Boston, essentially parallels Ms. Brown's account although it states that flight 293 left London at 8:29am, not 8am. When Ms. Mayo was deterred from pushing against the bulkhead, she asked the flight attendant, at that time, to speak to an air marshal. The affadavit states that Ms. Mayo made a statement to the effect, “I know you want to see what's in my bag.”
The flight attendant (named FA-1 in the affadavit) called the flight deck, requesting that the seat belt sign be turned on. The flight attendant went forward to speak with the first officer and the purser. This group came back to talk to Ms. Mayo, explained the regulations to her and talked very calmly to her. Ms. Mayo seemed calm at that point; however, she asked the flight attendants to turn her in to the air marshals. Ms. Brown was re-seated in first class by the flight crew.
The first officer, purser, and flight attendant apparently left Ms. Mayo seated and withdrew to the business-class galley. Some time later, Ms. Mayo passed a series of notes to the flight crew. One, to the First Officer, asked if Ms. Brown was moved because of her, Ms. Mayo. The First Officer said no and Ms. Mayo asked him to write that on the note and give it back to her. He complied.
Departure Time plus 2 hours 20 minutes
Ms. Mayo requested an unopened can of Pepsi®. After it was given to her, she went to one of the aft lavatories with the soda. When she emerged, she told one of the flight attendants, “I left the Pepsi can in the bathroom – there is something in it.” The flight crew found the open can of soda in the lavatory trash bin. When asked why she had done that, she had no explanation.
According to the Choldin affadavit, sometime later, Ms. Mayo asked flight attendant FA-1, “Is this a training flight for United 93?”, a reference to the fourth hijacked airliner on 11 September 2001 downed by a struggle between the passengers and crew and its flight's hijackers. FA-1 didn't know if Ms. Mayo knew what she was saying or misspoke and referring to flight 293.
During this time frame, the purser observed that Ms. Mayo was biting her fingers, rubbing her feet, and in a constant state of movement. She appeared very agitated. The purser, who ordinarily would have spent most of her time in the first-class cabin, decided to maintain her observation of Ms. Mayo as much as possible.
Departure Time plus 3 hours 30 minutes
Ms. Mayo was observed removing a bottle of water from an overhead compartment. One or more passengers, who had apparently become concerned themselves about Ms. Mayo's behavior, reported that fact to flight attendants. The bottle of water was not one that had been supplied by flight attendants during the flight. FA-1 confiscated the bottle from Ms. Mayo, because liquid was one of the items prohibited by the extraordinary security measures that had recently been implemented. Ms. Mayo put up an argument about relinquishing the bottle.
“[Mayo] had a tote, and I think a purse,” Brown recalled. “Half of the people in Heathrow had a complete body and bag search, but I didn't, and she evidently didn't either or they would have found the stuff prior to the flight.”
Sometime thereafter, Ms. Mayo handed a note to a flight attendant that made reference to her having been in another country illegally. The note expressed concern on her part about having to go through customs when the aircraft landed.
After another trip to one of the lavatories on her side of the fuselage in the aft of the plane, Ms. Mayo accused the flight attendants of going through her bags, asserting that she could tell because her blankets had been moved. She stated that in her bag was film with pictures of a Super 8 in Washington, D.C. and her trip to Pakistan, which she identified as the country she had been in illegally. She stated that the photographs would be awful, and she indicated that they related to the people that she had been with in the mountains of Pakistan.
The Purser informed the Captain of the aircraft that she believed that the aircraft should be landed as soon as possible. In response, the Captain decided to go speak to Ms. Mayo. He was accompanied by the Purser. In the ensuing conversation, Ms. Mayo made a number of bizarre statements to the Captain. Among them, she made reference to there being six steps to building some unspecified thing. The Captain and the Purser both thought she was referring to a bomb. She also stated that she had been in Pakistan, and she made reference to being with people associated with two words. She stated that she could not say what the two words were because the last time that she had said the two words she had been kicked off of a flight in the United Arab Emirates. The Captain and the Purser both believed that she was referring to Al Qaeda.
At the conclusion of his conversation with Ms. Mayo, the Captain returned to the flight deck area. He concluded from his interaction with Ms. Mayo that the threat presented did not just involve an unruly passenger, as he had originally believed, but instead involved a potential threat to the aircraft.
About thirty-five minutes later, Ms. Mayo again used one of the aft lavatories on her side of the plane. Afterward, another passenger used the adjoining lavatory. That passenger had drawn the Purser's attention because he had displayed what struck her as an inordinate interest in the Captain's earlier conversation with Ms. Mayo. Within a matter of minutes after that passenger exited the lavatory, Ms. Mayo got up to use the lavatory yet again. Before she could do so, the flight attendants locked both of the aft lavatories on that side of the plane. They informed Ms. Mayo that she could use one of the other lavatories just on the other side of the galley. After a brief exchange with the flight attendants, Ms. Mayo lowered her pants and urinated on the floor of the cabin just outside the locked lavatories.
The Purser immediately reported Ms. Mayo's actions to the Captain, who directed her to have Ms. Mayo restrained. The Captain also made the decision to divert the flight from its intended destination to Logan Airport.
In response to the Captain's directive, the Purser retrieved plastic flex cuffs and metal handcuffs, and she solicited the assistance of a male passenger. When she got back to the vicinity of the aft lavatories, where Ms. Mayo had remained, another male passenger was there, his assistance having been requested by another flight attendant. (Based on his own observations of Ms. Mayo's behavior during the flight, one of the two male passengers had become concerned that she might be acting as a diversion for a possible terrorist action; he had moved his seat so as to be potentially more useful should something occur.) The Purser informed Ms. Mayo that they were going to handcuff her. Ms. Mayo tried to get away. One of the male passengers restrained her and lowered her to the floor, at which point the Purser applied the flex cuffs to her wrists. She was then seated on the floor of the cabin on the other side of the galley, where she remained for the duration of the flight.
Upon flight 293's diversion to Boston, Ms. Mayo was ordered held without bail on charges of interfering with a flight crew, which carries a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison. On 6 September, five days ago, the New York Times reported that Ms. Mayo was ordered held at a mental health facility in New Hampshire.
According to the Boston Globe, at a press briefing outside the courthouse after the 17 August proceeding, US Attorney Michael J. Sullivan was asked how Ms. Mayo was able to get prohibited items, like the bottle of water, on board. He said, “I really don't have any idea in terms of how those items ended up on this flight.”
Postscript
One reason why this story is so curious to me is that very little has been reported about it since 18 August. In the month ensuing, we've rather been subjected to the media circus surrounding the false confession of John Mark Karr to the murder of Jon-Benet Ramsey, a story which I feel better appeals to the tabloid nature of our three major cable news networks.
In light of the ongoing debate about profiling young Muslim males when seeking out possible terrorists, I would ask you to glance at the family photo accompanying this essay. It's my assessment that Ms. Mayo is neither male or Muslim.
What could have been profiled was Ms. Mayo's behavior. According to an Associated Press interview, Ms. Mayo's son Josh described his mother as a peace activist and said she had been in Pakistan since March. She traveled there often since making a pen pal prior to 11 September 2001, he said. The pen pal hasn't been allowed to visit the U.S., he added.
According to the Boston Globe, Ms. Mayo, in March 2003, walked into the offices of the Daily Times of Pakistan telling editor Najam Sethi that he wanted to vent her anger at America in his pages. In an open letter to her granddaughters published on 24 June 2003, Ms. Mayo wrote: “Governments in the world right now have made terrible decisions and have caused a lot of fear and bloodshed.” She wrote for the Daily Times until July 2003 and then, according to Sethi, “disappeared.”
Several other questions arise. In addition to, apparently, not fully searching Ms. Mayo and Ms. Brown before boarding, why did it take over two hours of Ms. Mayo's strange behavior before she was finally secured? For the cable networks, what makes the story of John Mark Karr more compelling, more newsworthy than that of Catherine C. Mayo? And for my government, how secure can I feel when some of you are intent on profiling physical characteristics rather than behavior?
More thoughts to ponder before your head hits the pillow tonight.
Ciao for now!
Mike
[4½ stars]
[3½ stars]
Copyright © 1995-2006 by Michael K. Murray