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Flier gets $400g in jet flap: Crew mistook him for terrorist In what’s being hailed as a landmark post-9/11 verdict, a Boston jury has ordered American Airlines [AMR] to pay a computer consultant $400,000 for suspecting him of being a Middle Eastern terrorist. “They thought they could walk into that courtroom and say, ‘Security! Security!’ and make themselves above the law. The jury said they couldn’t,” John Cerqueira, 39, born in Portugal and raised in Fall River, said yesterday from his home in Miami. While other alleged victims of racial profiling have struck out-of-court deals, Boston attorney David Godkin said Cerqueira’s civil rights case is the first of its kind since Sept. 11, 2001, to reach trial. Godkin posed the following question to jurors: “Imagine if our client had been a middle-aged blond woman. Would the same thing have happened?” State police removed Cerqueira from Florida-bound Flight 2237 on Dec. 28, 2003, along with two Israeli men seated next to him in coach, because they were frightening the flight crew preparing for takeoff from Logan International Airport. An incident report from the event signed by AA Capt. John Ehlers, which the Herald obtained yesterday, explains, “3 PAX (passengers) sitting in row 20 (seats) DEF observed by F/As (flight attendants) & cockpit crew as making inappropriate, suspicious comments in boarding area & on board aircraft. Seemed to be foreign nationals. Overheard wishing other PAX ‘Happy New Year.’ ” Cerqueira - who was released after two hours of questioning, but refused alternative travel accommodations by American - said his seatmates were “loud” and slipping in and out of English, but, “I had never met them before. All I did was go to the bathroom, use my computer and fall asleep.” An attorney for American Airlines could not be reached for comment yesterday. The carrier lost two jets and the lives of 129 passengers and 17 crew members to Middle East terrorists on Sept. 11, 2001, including Flight 11, hijacked out of Logan and crashed into New York’s World Trade Center. Late Friday, a federal jury decided American Airlines was wrong to take the precautionary measure of having Cerqueira deplaned and awarded him $130,000 in compensatory damages and $270,000 in punitive damages. “I do realize Sept. 11 weighs hard on our consciences and everyone is interested in better safe than sorry,” Cerqueira said, “but if they had just put me on another plane, none of this would have happened.”

Flier gets $400g in jet flap: Crew mistook him for terrorist