BA FLIGHT 0092
(Image by Peter Lewis)
Christmas was fantastic but like all good things it came to an end. My flight to London left Toronto on the evening of the 27th but with a rather disturbing delay.

The flight was about to take off after a long taxi to the head of the runway. The engines were powered and ready to go. The lights were turned down in the cabins as usual. The plane retreats from the runway and begins a long return journey to the airport. The pilot turns on the intercom, informing his passengers that we're returning to the terminal to confirm some details. I return to my music. Jamming my headphones on, I ask the passagers next to me to keep me informed of any updates.

Twenty minutes pass. The plane has since stopped at the terminal. My digital entertainment is interrupted by the opening and closing of the overhead luggage compartments in my cabin, where flight attendants crowd the aisles in my cabin rapidly searching for.....

"What's going on", I asked the man next to me. "A passanger was removed from the plane," he said. "What did he look like?" I asked. "He was a young man" he replied, as though he were searching for words he couldn't find. A few minutes pass and the flight attendants seemed to be satisfied with their findings or lack of. I decide to press my fellow passanger for further details. "What did he look like?" I asked again, thinking this man was likely being all politically correct. After a long description, including all but the colour of his shoe laces, I'm told be was likely Muslim.

About an hour and a quarter late, we leave Toronto. Priviledged enough to sit at an emergency exit I asked the flight attendant sitting opposite what the deal was while on the taxi to Heathrow Terminal 4.

Turns out the women sitting next to this young man was a metropolitian policewoman. She figured something was up. Word made its way to the pilot, who had the final say on the matter, and he was off the plane. Woman in the right place at the right time? She seemed to be on to something as the passanger had no checked in luggage. The flight attendant told me that in his 18 years on the job he has never experienced any instance remotely similar or been made aware of similar situations from colleagues.

We don't know what might have happened on the flight if he hadn't been removed. Perhaps nothing but then perhaps he was headed for London for a public display of self-combustion. Either way we will never know.