Air passenger held at BIA to be deported Government lags in defining plan to curb flight diversions

BANGOR – Federal authorities are deporting the passenger whose presence on the federal no-fly list prompted the international flight he was on Tuesday to be diverted to Bangor.

Federal investigators from several agencies have been interviewing the man since he was removed from Alitalia Flight 618, which landed at Bangor International Airport shortly before 1 p.m. Tuesday.

In a related matter, the government is three months late in coming up with a plan ordered by Congress to avoid diverting international flights because of concerns about their passengers.

An intelligence bill passed in December gave the Homeland Security Department until Feb. 15 to develop a plan to check passengers’ names against the list before a plane departed.

The man, whose name or nationality has not been released, was a positive match on the no-fly list, and he was held in Bangor while the plane was allowed to resume its flight to Boston, federal authorities said.

The man had applied for permanent residency here in the United States, but a federal official said Wednesday the man withdrew that request.

“Following a thorough interview process by U.S. Customs and Border Protection, the individual in question voluntarily withdrew his application for legal permanent residence status in the U.S.,” Paula Grenier, public affairs officer with Immigration and Customs Enforcement, said Wednesday, reading from a prepared statement.

Grenier said that ICE officials are arranging for the man’s removal from this country and that he would remain in federal custody until he leaves.

The FBI also interviewed the man, but a spokeswoman said Tuesday night that the man was “of no interest” to that agency.

Learning that the man’s name was on the no-fly list after the flight took off from Milan, Italy, federal authorities in this country ordered the flight, carrying 116 passengers and a crew of 10, to land at BIA. The Boeing 767 was refueled at the airport and resumed its flight to Boston, without the man, about 90 minutes after it landed.

The Alitalia flight was escorted by Canadian jetfighters while in Canadian air space. Once it reached U.S. air space, it was escorted by two F-15 Eagles from Otis Air Force National Guard base on Cape Cod.

About 2,600 planes fly into the United States every day, according to Flight Explorer, a Virginia-based company that provides flight-tracking information.

Under the current system, airlines check the passengers before they board, then forward a manifest to U.S. officials 15 minutes after a plane departs.

Passenger names and personal information – such as passport information, address, flight details and form of payment – are sent electronically to the Customs Service’s National Targeting Center. There, law enforcement officials use computer programs to compare the data with lists of terrorists, wanted criminals and violators of immigration laws.

It can take up to two hours to check all the passengers, said David Stempler, president of the Air Travelers Association. If the United States checked names before a flight took off, passengers would have to wait in their seats for two hours or show up at the airport two hours earlier, he said.

“So here’s the choice: Either you have to occasionally inconvenience 250 passengers or you otherwise inconvenience hundreds of thousands of passengers every day,” Stempler said.

The flight diversion Tuesday was the second time in less than a week that a flight was diverted to Bangor, although authorities said the diversion of an Air France plane on May 12 was a case of mistaken identity.

A man whose date of birth matched someone’s on the no-fly list and whose name was only a few letters different from the listed man was removed from the flight, along with a woman and two children traveling with him. Authorities learned it was not the man on the list, and he later was allowed to resume his flight to Boston.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.