Terror in the Skies?

A whole bunch of folks are linking to this story. Oh the The Volokh Conspiracy is linking too.

Can anyone think of a reason why groups of muslim men would cycle through both bathrooms on an airliner in flight? And synchronized like they all know when they have to do it. Very suspicious... Of course what do muslims do 5 times a day at set synchronized times? They pray. The woman's account includes a rolled up cloth "bag" which is removed from storage. This is likely that man's prayer rug. She also mentions another man reading from a little red book on the second occassion, this is likely a copy of the Koran.

Others have said "hey this happened on my flight too". Yes it did. Because this is what some observant muslims do when they have to pray on an airliner. Calm down folks.

Now is this important? Could Muslims organize some sort of terrorist act based around their prayer activites? Did the authorities react properly to the situation? They could use this as a pretext and the authorities didn't, which is why this story is important. But people, they were probably just a bunch of musicians praying!

Update: Just checked the typical times which are around noon and 5pm. Her flight left at 12:30 so they were probably boarding or in public at the first prayer time. They took it in the air instead. The flight was four and half hours long so they landed right around afternoon prayers, hence the commotion.

Comments: I just switched over to Haloscan for commenting and trackback. This means the original comments have unfortunately been lost when my blog republished. Sorry about that. If anyone knows how to make a copy of them I can throw onto this thread please let me know.