I can't really understand exactly how the Honolulu Advertiser got that headline from this article - but I used it anyway. I think the one above the same article at the Washington Post is a little more responsible.
There are a lot of “might haves” and “we believes” in that report. And then there is the information they didn't find out from the people who didn't show up to board the flight, on of whom is “apparently” trained pilot.
The thing I want to point out here is that there were specific people that government officials were suspicious of and knew were going to be on the flight. And they wanted the flight grounded. That's at least a glimpse of what's going on behind the scenes.
U.S. government officials said they believe they might have averted a terrorist attack by arranging for the flights' cancellation. Officials said they feared that al Qaeda operatives planned to hijack one of the flights and use the plane as a missile to attack a site on or near its route.
The thing we'll never know, at least not for the time being is if they did avert an attack. They probably know already, and can't say. The threats don't begin and end with airplanes either.
"Our fear is that other things are going on" that have nothing to do with jetliner flights in or out of U.S. airports, said one U.S. official briefed on high-level intelligence. "The concern is that there still could be a lot of activity that was underway."
Maybe that explains why the flights have resumed.
Another government official with access to the classified reports said U.S. security officials "are really concerned something major will happen" despite the cancellation of the three incoming and three outgoing Air France flights between Paris and Los Angeles on Christmas Eve and yesterday. One scenario embraced by a number of U.S. security officials is that al Qaeda operatives were in the final stages of planning an attack in this country, and were awaiting final direction from al Qaeda superiors to proceed.
Captains Quarters has the best summary of the background on this story that I've seen
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