Here is a summary:
This is about another right wing viral hot topic that eventually got debunked. Petruna, supposedly a NASA employee at one time, started circulating emails about witnessing a dry run by islamic terrorists on Flight 297(Atlanta-Houston) but the whole account was being suppressed. The right wing community would add to the silliness by adding comments that are imbued with over the top gravitas of how each one of them either worked in the aviation industry, or knew the guy personally and was a stand up guy who wouldnt lie, or were in the CIA or government and how they can tell that this is true. This is a cheneyesque tactic where instant credibility is demanded just by saying "well, come on, how can you question serious people like us?" .

Anyway, here is that link:
http://www.debbieschlussel.com/13158/ano ther-muslim-hijacking-dry-run-if-true-te dd-petrunas-my-new-hero/

Glenn Beck supposedly showed similar enthusiasm for this topic on another site. I love how Debbie Schussel, one of those idiotic talking heads I feel like going all Gallagher like on her watermelon head, goes on about how she personally checked out this source.

**  UPDATE, 9:41 p.m. ET: Earlier today, I contacted Tedd Petruna, the brave passenger on AirTran Flight 297, who-with another Texan-saved the day from apparent Islamic terrorists, leaving him a voicemail message asking for confirmation of the e-mail and events below.  Mr. Petruna called me back, tonight, and confirmed that he did write the e-mail below and that it's all true.  WAKE. UP. AMERICA.  We are under siege.  **

This is an update by Debbie which is postdated after an initial caveat by her which claims that she is not 100% sure it is true but she is willing to believe this account. So at the time of the update, whatever little doubts she has are gone.

Now people might ask how can one be 100% sure that someone would dupe them on such an important topic. But if you read the account by this idiot Petruna, you wouldn't need Airtran to personally verify that he wasn't even on the flight to disbelieve the nonsense spouted by him.

Some of the hilarious observations by Petruna that should have given any half-wit pause. Before I get into Petruna's account, let me present you the email by his buddy whose very words should have instantly given any half sane person doubts about his lack of credibility in vouching for anything.

I, Gene Hackemack, received this email from my good friend Tedd Petruna, a diver at the NBL facility [Neutral Buoyancy Lab], at NASA Houston, whom I used to work with.  Tedd happened to be on this same Flt. 297, Atlanta to Houston .

In my opinion, the muslims are all getting very brave now, since they have one of their own in the white house......read Tedd's story below.

Semper Fi

Gene Hackemack

PS...can you imagine, our own news media now are so politically correct that they are afraid to report that these were all muslims...unbelievable. Thank God for people like Tedd Petruna.

A. Gene Hackemack

Observe the Semper Fi reference which is supposedly giving our Marine instant credibility because he is a fucking MARINE. Who the hell cares. Then he slips in among his rants how Obama is a Muslim.

Oh, before we get into Tedd's story, here is another character Keith Robinson, a freaking chaplain who is either the dumbest goober on the planet or is bent on surpassing Stiller's characters full retard impression in Tropic Thunder.
http://www.khou.com/video/featured-video s/AirTran-e-mail-stirs-up-Internet-fires torm--78475462.html

The link above has footage of Sr Chaplain Dr. Keith Robinson telling the local Houston TV station that Petruna came across to him as a patriot. From what i gather Robinson got on the flight after they reboarded and was not on the flight when they intially had the problems. Oh, I just love local news reporting where they fail to be properly skeptical despite Petruna not being able to explain inconsistenties like making a claim at some point he saw them watching porn and then admitting he never saw them watching porn.Hey, shouldn't that put up a red flag for the TV station? I wonder if that station is just sloppy in the typical local news way or is the owner some right wing idiot who forced his station to rush this report on air without doing the proper research on the issue.

Anyway, onto Tedd's story:

One week ago, I went to Ohio on business and to see my father.  On Tuesday, November the 17th, I returned home.  If you read the papers the 18th you may have seen a blurb where a AirTran flight was cancelled from Atlanta to Houston due to a man who refused to get off of his cell phone before takeoff.  It was on Fox.

This was NOT what happened.

I was in 1st class coming home.  11 Muslim men got on the plane in full attire.  2 sat in 1st class and the rest peppered themselves throughout the plane all the way to the back.

As the plane taxied to the runway the stewardesses gave the safety spiel we are all so familiar with.  At that time, one of the men got on his cell and called one of his companions in the back and proceeded to talk on the phone in Arabic very loudly and very aggressively.  This took the 1st stewardess out of the picture for she repeatedly told the man that cell phones were not permitted at the time.  He ignored her as if she was not there.

The 2nd man who answered the phone did the same and this took out the 2nd stewardess.  In the back of the plane at this time, 2 younger Muslims, one in the back, isle, and one in front of him, window, began to show footage of a porno they had taped the night before, and were very loud about it.  Now....they are only permitted to do this prior to Jihad.  If a Muslim man goes into a strip club, he has to view the woman via mirror with his back to her.  (don't ask me....I don't make the rules, but I've studied)  The 3rd stewardess informed them that they were not to have electronic devices on at this time.  To which one of the men said "shut up infidel dog!" She went to take the camcorder and he began to scream in her face in Arabic.  At that exact moment, all 11 of them got up and started to walk the cabin.  This is where I had had enough!  I got up and started to the back where I heard a voice behind me from another Texan twice my size say "I got your back." I grabbed the man who had been on the phone by the arm and said "you WILL go sit down or you Will be thrown from this plane!" As I "led" him around me to take his seat, the fellow Texan grabbed him by the back of his neck and his waist and headed out with him.  I then grabbed the 2nd man and said, "You WILL do the same!" He protested but adrenaline was flowing now and he was going to go.  As I escorted him forward the plane doors open and 3 TSA agents and 4 police officers entered.  Me and my new Texan friend were told to cease and desist for they had this under control.  I was happy to oblige actually.  There was some commotion in the back, but within moments, all 11 were escorted off the plane.  They then unloaded their luggage.

We talked about the occurrence and were in disbelief that it had happen, when suddenly, the door open again and on walked all 11!!  Stone faced, eyes front and robotic (the only way I can describe it).  The stewardess from the back had been in tears and when she saw this, she was having NONE of it!  Being that I was up front, I heard and saw the whole ordeal.  She told the TSA agent there was NO WAY she was staying on the plane with these men.  The agent told her they had searched them and were going to go through their luggage with a fine tooth comb and that they were allowed to proceed to Houston .  The captain and co-captain came out and told the agent "we and our crew will not fly this plane!" After a word or two, the entire crew, luggage in tow, left the plane.  5 minutes later, the cabin door opened again and a whole new crew walked on.

Again.....this is where I had had enough!!!  I got up and asked "What the hell is going on!?!?" I was told to take my seat.  They were sorry for the delay and I would be home shortly.  I said "I'm getting off this plane".  The stewardess sternly told me that she could not allow me to get off.  (now I'm mad!)  I said "I am a grown man who bought this ticket, who's time is mine with a family at home and I am going through that door, or I'm going through that door with you under my arm!!  But I am going through that door!!" And I heard a voice behind me say "so am I".  Then everyone behind us started to get up and say the same.  Within 2 minutes, I was walking off that plane where I was met with more agents who asked me to write a statement.  I had 5 hours to kill at this point so why the hell not.  Due to the amount of people who got off that flight, it was cancelled.  I was supposed to be in Houston at 6pm.  I got here at 12:30am.

Look up the date.  Flight 297 Atlanta to Houston .

If this wasn't a dry run, I don't know what one is.  The terrorists wanted to see how TSA would handle it, how the crew would handle it, and how the passengers would handle it.

I'm telling this to you because I want you to know....

The threat is real.  I saw it with my own eyes....

-Tedd Petruna

Well, there it is. Before I post the predictable fact checking that is going to make all these idiots look like morons of the highest order, let us just go by his own words. Who the hell will say "Shut up you infidel dog"?? Some extra from the set of True Lies?????? Would Petruna then dig the following clip up as documentary footage??????????
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FAgZlwSGY E8&feature=related

Anyway, let's not have facts rain on the party of the fools. Here is Airtran with an interesting statement:

If any of these idiots  bothered to do cursory research, they would have found this original article where another eyewitness tells a very different story of what happened.
http://www.ajc.com/news/atlanta/faa-to-i nvestigate-cell-202143.html

But the woman sitting behind the man said it wasn't a phone at all, and feels the entire incident was the result of poor communication.

"He was not talking on a cell phone, it was a camera," said Nancy Deveikis of Marietta. "He was looking at pictures."

A flight attendant asked the man twice to turn off the device, Deveikis said. But it was clear the man did not speak English, she said. Although the man was traveling with others, the rest of the group was seated throughout the plane.

When the man did not respond to the flight attendant, she took the camera from him, Deveikis said. Deveikis, who presented ajc.com with her boarding pass for the flight, said she watched the exchange from directly behind the man in seat 28A and the female flight attendant.

Wow, plenty of mention of an idiot passenger and an overreacting flight attendent but no mention of dangerous terrorist or our hero from the other email or his big Texan  buddy who had his back. She even had proof. She had a boarding pass that she was on the flight. Why is that lil nugget important?

It turns out Petruna wasn't even on the freaking flight. He never made the connection.

http://www.ajc.com/business/airtran-hero -wasn-t-226517.html?imw=Y

It's a little easier to understand why a man who claimed to have thwarted a potential terrorist attack on a plane has not answered repeated requests to tell his story.
More business news

He was not on the plane, according to AirTran Airways.

"After conducting additional research into this situation, we have verified, according to flight manifests (legally binding documents) that the individual that allegedly created a first-hand account of events on-board AirTran Airways Flight 297, a Theodore Petruna, was never actually on-board the flight," AirTran said in a statement, which the AJC was the first to obtain.

An e-mail from a Tedd Petruna, which he told the AJC via a Facebook message Friday was intended only for friends and family, made the rounds online this week after one of those friends apparently forwarded it to others. In a matter of days, Petruna's account appeared in chat rooms, blogs and conspiracy theorists' Web sites

More goodness:

But there was no way Petruna could have seen what he described on Flight 297, AirTran said in a statment. Petruna departed from Akron-Canton, Ohio, on AirTran Flight 205 on Nov. 17, officials said. He was supposed to connect to Flight 297 to head home to Houston, but he missed his first flight out of Ohio. And therefore, he missed the connecting flight."Flight 297, the flight which Mr. Patruna allegedly wrote a first-hand account of, originally pushed back from its gate in Atlanta at 4:40 p.m. EST, a full 26 minutes before flight 205 arrived at the gate in Atlanta making this flight connection impossible," according to AirTran.

Here is another link in airline biz blog where the comments suggest that our country still has some sane people left.
http://aviationblog.dallasnews.com/archives/2009/12/we-have-two-updates-on.html

It is unfortunate the people who work at Airtran were so clumsy in responding to this incident. Does it really take so many days to find out if this idiot is on the flight? Also, we still do not know why a passenger, if he is really that much of an asshole, was allowed to reboard. But whatever it is, it was definitely not a dry run by muslims. Looks like just some clueless idiot who doesn't know English.

Seriously, I will consider next week bait week. I will raise Petruna's name and I will take down any idiot who dare believes this nonsense. I am fed up with the idiots, fearmongerers, cowards, liars, and conmen who are trying to act like they deserve an equal basis of credibility in public. These people, and their leaders need to be taken down.

To get a better understanding of how these guys keep fooling our "moderates", the following link is a good example of how "serious" conservative use "trusted" sources and we should just believe them that these sources are trusted. Take a look at the excerpt from the following link which has a piece from the Doug Haggman of the Canadian Free Press. http://canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/17508

As initially stated, proper and accurate investigation takes time to corroborate eyewitness accounts, which are often unreliable, contradictive and in cases like this, colored by emotion. Having interviewed a total of seven-(7) individuals directly involved in this incident over the last several days, including two law enforcement officers who handled the after action reports, the situation pertaining to the initial 13 and remaining 10 or 11 Muslim men allowed to continue their travels was far greater than an incident involving the unauthorized use of a cell phone that resulted in a minor flight delay, as reported by the mainstream media. According to one airline security official, “This was a deliberate, well planned attempt to disrupt a domestic flight that was organized in advance of the boarding of these [Muslim] passengers. The purpose of their actions appeared to be multi-faceted, not the least of which was an attempt to change their status from passengers to victims of religious profiling. The situation was handled in a manner that we believe might have avoided an incident like USAir had in 2006, where everyone from the passengers who reported suspicious behavior to the airline was subjected to legal action by the Muslim passengers.”

Seriously, how the hell do we know this guy talked to SEVEN witnesses???? I love how they get away with such bald faced lies. Going through all the links, do you notice how the right wingers get away with such crap of how they personally verified such information? They are not held accountable when it turns out to be a lie. That is why people like Cheney's awful daughter is just picking up where her evil Dad left off and then you got idiots like Palin believing that crap. Update [2009-12-5 20:3:42 by Pravin]: Here is another link where Keith Robinson, a so called chaplain engages in some over the top fearmongering and lying.

http://www.debbieschlussel.com/13218/more-evidence-of-dry-run-steve-gills-interview-w-airtran-flt-297-passenger-chaplain/ I would point out, my understanding, Keith, is that AirTran is kind of like Southwest Airlines, you get (??) seating, you sit wherever you want. And when this group of eleven men got on the plane initially, they put themselves throughout the plane and according to Tedd Petruna’s account, at one point, one of the guys in the very front of the plane called one of the guys in the middle of the plane on his cell phone and they were having conversations. Again, they didn’t sit as a group, they spread out through the plane, just like the 9/11 hi-jackers had done.

Robinson: Yeah, there was a group that was in the front of the airplane and then another group that was towards the back of the airplane and I tried to, as soon as I saw this starting, I took out my laptop and began to write what you have seen.