Crew Ignored Warning About Masked Man: CNN

Air Canada flight attendants ignored repeated warnings about a passenger who looked suspicious, a woman who was on the flight that a young Chinese man had boarded disguised as an elderly white man told CNN on Monday.

Nuray Kurtur-Balas told the U.S. network that the plane was still on the tarmac in Hong Kong when she got a good look at the man and immediately suspected something was wrong.

“It wasn’t a real person’s skin. It looked plastic,” she told CNN. “I said to the flight attendant, ‘Did you check out that person’s hands? They seem like they belong to a 20-year-old kid. There are no wrinkles.”

Kurtur-Balas, who had been in Hong Kong on business and was flying home on her 35th birthday, said the flight attendant simply remarked ‘good observation.’

When no action was taken she said she went to a second flight attendant, told him she was nervous about the flight, and asked if her concerns had been checked out.

She said the attendant told her ‘We’ll look into it,’ but again nothing was done.

Finally, she said, she spoke to a third flight attendant before the plane left Hong Kong, but was told the man had done nothing wrong, and might, in fact, have a medical condition.

“I was thinking the whole time he was wearing a mask,” Kurtur-Balas said. “Why would somebody wear a mask if they have a medical issue?” “I was thinking he was going to blow the plane up.”

Kurtur-Balas said she kept her iPhone close so that she could call her family if something terrible happened.

The man removed his silicone mask after the flight took off, and the air crew then alerted authorities in Vancouver.

The 22-year-old Chinese national was arrested when the flight landed.

He remains in detention in Vancouver and is seeking asylum in Canada.

Air Canada declined to comment on Kurtur-Balas’ allegations, saying the company is currently conducting an internal investigation with the airline’s staff as well as with SATS, the company that performs passport verification at the boarding gate and passenger boarding services on behalf of Air Canada in Hong Kong.

At an immigration hearing in Vancouver on Monday, the lawyer for the asylum seeker requested the media be banned from the hearings in order to protect his client and the man’s family.

The immigration adjudicatory said she would release her decision about allowing media access on Wednesday, the same day the unnamed refugee claimant is expected to be back before the board for a hearing.

Kurtur-Balas contacted CNN after reading an article about the incident.

She said she told her husband all about the bizarre incident when she got home, but said he didn’t believe her.

She said he told her “‘You are watching too much ‘CSI’ and ‘Criminal Minds.'”