http://bigpondnews.com/articles/World/2010/01/09/F-16s_respond__to_...

Two F-16 fighter jets took to the air after a report of an unruly passenger aboard an airliner bound for San Francisco, the North American Aerospace Defence Command (NORAD) says.

As the fighter aircraft arrived on Friday, the Air Tran plane that had taken off from Atlanta landed safely in Colorado Springs, Colorado, at noon local time, NORAD said in a statement.

The F-16 warplanes were launched 'in response to reports of an unruly passenger aboard Air Tran Flight 39 from Atlanta bound for San Francisco,' NORAD said.

It was the second such incident in three days, with two F-15 fighters intercepting an airliner bound for Hawaii on Wednesday after a passenger caused a 'disturbance.'

NORAD, a joint US-Canada mission, scrambles fighter jets to respond to possible terrorist threats from the air, after the attacks of September 11, 2001 involving hijacked airliners.

The fighter pilots are prepared to shoot down the airliners if necessary to prevent a possible repeat of the 9/11 attacks when hijacked planes were flown into the World Trade Centre in New York and the Pentagon in the US capital.

Based in Colorado, NORAD was created during the Cold War in 1958 to protect North America against air assaults.