A few days after U.S. Navy SEALs assassinated Osama bin Laden in Abbottabad, Pakistan, a Delta connection flight pulled away from the gate at Memphis International Airport in Tennessee. The Atlantic Southeast Airlines (ASA) passenger jet, bound for Charlotte, North Carolina, never made it to the runway. While taxiing, the crew requested clearance to return to the gate.

It wasn’t a mechanical problem. There was nothing wrong with the plane. As the flight crew explained to Ground Control, there was something wrong with two of the passengers.

No, it wasn’t anything the prospective travellers had said or done. They weren’t drunk or disorderly; their tickets were perfectly valid, and they had been cleared by TSA (Transport Security Authority), Read more