I had a situation departing LaGuardia, which if written out in full would be too long and labor intensive, but I am convinced these were bad guys on our flight. To summarize...
Two middle-eastern dudes fly from Belgium to JFK, shuttle to LGA, board the jet, and sit right next to each other in a 3-across row. In other words, they were snuggling when most would spread out. They began to speak in an arab tongue. An anglo woman happened to know Farsi, listened in, and informed the #1 they were discussing security on the jet.
The Capt and I look at each other, and began a 40 minute process of figuring out just WTF was with these guys. The Capt. fakes a maintenance problem while we investigate. He goes back and talks to the men. "NoNoNo, we speak Pakistan, we are Pakistani". Aside to the Capt, Anglo farsi-woman says "No way in hell, it was FARSI". Capt speed dials everyone he knows with security credentials on his cell phone. No one in corporate security can help, so we talk a bit and decide to boot these guys on our own. When the LGA cops arrive to remove them from the plane, the Capt. makes a killer PA... "The maintenance problem was fake, we had two very suspicious men removed from the flight by the port authority." The jet erupts in applause.
I turns out the men had NO bags except a single gym bag between the two, and this was on a flight from EUROPE!! We certainly didn't want their shiite in the cargo hold. I am convinced that they were observers, unlikely to try anything, there weren't enough of them, but they were there to monitor cockpit access and crew coordination. No FAMS on board.
