U.S. authorities refused to allow a KLM Royal Dutch Airlines 747 to fly over the United States yesterday, as you can read on this CNN page [or find more about it at Google's News]. The aircraft was on it's way to Mexico.

Now what's up with that? There where two people among the 278 passengers who where on a watch list of the US, so the authorities just refused to let the plane pass, and it had to go all the way back because it hadn't enough kerosine to continue straight to Mexico. So, they let a full, large plane with 2 suspects [which one can argue about] stay in the air for seven more hours. Isn't that more dangerous than having it land and get those 2 off the plane if they are so scared of them? And why doing so it so arrogantly? [The plane already was nearing Canada when the US denied access, and it had 276 other passengers on board, all having better things to do then going all the way back to Europe]. Or was it a failing system that issued the warning too late? In that case I have even less trust in their anti-terrorist systems, because they screen everything and everyone [a reason for me _not_ to go anywhere near the US in the next years] but fail to react in a timely manner.

I think it's only a good thing our government is starting to discuss about this issue [Dutch link], as it's way to willing to provide their citizens information when they are traveling to the US.