The families of tax attorney Atif Irfan and his brother Kashif were removed from an AirTran Airways flight after other passengers complained of suspicious comments they overheard.

Kashif accused the airline of discriminating against the group because some of them were wearing traditional Muslim garb. He said they had merely been discussing the safest place to sit on an airplane and not making any threatening comments. The FBI cleared the group to travel, but AirTran refused to rebook them on another flight. The airline claimed that it had not been notified by the FBI that the group had been cleared to fly.

The incident occurred at Ronald Reagan National Airport in Washington, D.C., on a flight bound for Orlando, Fla.