Economist’s equations cause delay to US flight
Print Edition
IT could be a case of racial profiling — or doing math in the wrong place at the wrong time.
A noted economics professor was questioned by security after a fellow passenger reported that he was suspicious, scribbling intently on a notepad in what appeared to be cryptic code.
The pilot quickly determined that “the female passenger’s concerns are not valid,” American Airlines spokesman Casey Norton said yesterday.
According to media reports, Guido Menzio, an Italian with olive skin and dark curly hair, was traveling to give a talk when the woman next to him on the American Eagle flight from Philadelphia to Syracuse told the crew she was ill.
After the plane returned to the gate and the woman disembarked, she said her real reason for wanting to turn back was that she was worried about Menzio’s behavior.
Menzio met with airline security, who said he was suspected of “terrorism.”
The professor showed them that his scribbles were, in fact, a differential equation.
The flight took off after a delay of about two hours.
Menzio is a theoretical macroeconomist at the University of Pennsylvania.
Menzio told the Washington Post in an e-mail that “it is hard not to recognize in this incident the ethos of (Donald) Trump’s voting base,” referring to the Republican presidential hopeful’s anti-Islam, anti-immigration rhetoric.
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