Air France Flight Back On Course

An Air France jetliner en route from Paris to Boston was diverted to Maine on Thursday to check on a passenger whose name appeared on a no-fly list, officials said.

The flight continued to Boston less than two hours later without the passenger of interest and three of his family members, said Rebecca Hupp, director of the Bangor airport.

The four were detained by federal immigration officials, said Ann Davis, spokeswoman for the Transportation Security Administration in Boston.

The Airbus A-330, carrying 169 passengers and approximately six crew members, was diverted because the passenger had the same name as someone on the U.S. government's no-fly list, Davis said. Air France and Federal Aviation Administration officials reported nothing else unusual about the flight.

Hupp said federal officials were evaluating whether the passenger was the person on no-fly list or whether it was a case of mistaken identity.

CBS News Correspondent Bob Orr reports the information from authorities most likely indicates that the person is in fact on the no-fly list rather than a case of mistaken or similar name identification. The plane is an Airbus A-330.

U.S. law requires airlines to transmit to the Homeland Security Department the passenger lists for flights bound for the U.S. within 15 minutes of takeoff. Officials then check the names against terrorist watch lists.

Bangor International Airport has a well-earned reputation as a stopping off point for trans-Atlantic flights. It is the last major U.S. airport for jets headed across the Atlantic and the first for incoming flights.

Last September, a London-to-Washington flight carrying the singer formerly known as Cat Stevens was diverted to Bangor. Security officials later said a gap in the airline passenger-check system permitted Yusuf Islam — the name the singer took after converting to Islam — to board the flight to the United States despite being on a no-fly list for suspected ties to terrorists. Islam has strongly denied the claim.