First things first.  Set aside 30 minutes and read this.
And if you have more time, read the follow-up articles here, here, here, and here.
If you have even more time, check out this other pertinent information here, here, here, here, here, and here.

Because I know you are lazy and frightened by anything that requires more than 5 minutes of your A.D.D. riddled brain's attention, here's a quick summary.  A woman on board domestic airline flight 327 from Detroit to Los Angeles became scared for her life when she and her family, and other passengers, felt convinced there was terrorist activity taking place on the flight.  Perhaps a dry run of a hijacking.  Her report of this flight was published by Women's Wall Street titled "Terror in the Skies, Again?"  Now, seriously.  I cannot give this story justice in a summary.  At least read the original article before proceeding, and I strongly encourage you to check out the other material as well.

Obviously I don't know what really happened.  I wasn't there.  To some extent it has become a "he said, she said" situation.  Left-wingers are labeling the story as inflammatory propaganda.  Right-wingers are calling it a cover-up of an attempted dry run.  Here is the thing that pisses me off.  There's no way for me to know what is accurate.  Is she over-reacting, or is she just being accused of over-reaction by the people who don't believe her story?  There's no way for me to know for sure.  Therefore I'm unwilling to make a judgement at this time.

Weaponry

It seems undisputed that these men carried musical instruments onto the plane.  Does that sound like a good idea to you?  They can carry on a clarinet, but probably not a lead pipe.  Is one a more effective weapon than the other?  Yet how far should we go with this?  Even a rolled up magazine can make a fine weapon if done properly.

Racial Profile

Here's a question.  If the exact same scenario had played out with middle-aged white women, would she have reacted the same way?  I'd guess probably not.  I suspect they would have been written off as kooky bitches who wouldn't sit down or shut up.  And they certainly would not have been met by federal agents upon landing.  Here's another question.  Is that a bad thing?  I mean, after all, we're not at war with white women.  A group of white women never flew airplanes into our buildings.

Tangent: I've noticed how white folks never accuse anyone of racial profiling.  I wonder why not.  If a little girl is kidnapped, and the description is of a tall white guy with light hair and a van dyke.  I would fully expect cops to question me if they saw me.  Would I have the right to claim they "racially profiled" me because I'm white?  Or do I just simply fit the description of a likely suspect who happens to be white?  Getting upset over racial profiling is ridiculous.  It's an absolutely essential part of fighting the kind of war we're fighting, where the enemy might be your neighbor and you don't even know it (and no, I'm not fear mongering, just stating the plain facts).

Air Marshall Conspiracy

We have a limited number of Federal Air Marshalls.  They can't be on every single flight, it's impossible.  But they happened to be on this one?  Isn't that convenient.  I haven't heard anybody ask that question.  How is it that there happened to be air marshalls on this flight?  Could it be they saw the passenger manifest and noticed the large number of middle eastern names?  Or perhaps this particular group of musicians was on a watch list of some kind?  Of course, that's very conspiracy-minded of me, but I'd love to know the answer.  I get the feeling it's not coincidental.

Lasting Impressions

Whether or not anything suspicious was going on, the fact remains that some people on board thought there was.  So what did they do about it?  Apparently, not much.  They talked to the stewardesses and looked around the cabin at each other.  I remember after 9/11 a lot of tough-guys saying how they would never let someone hijack THEIR plane.  They'd do something, damn it!  They'd tackle people in the aisles!  They'd organize a revolt!  Seems like maybe that was a lot of big talk, and those tough-guys can't be counted on to actually help in a situation like that.  And what about the flight crew.  Did they ask the men to stop congregating near the restrooms?  Did they ask the men to take their seats?  Apparently not until the plane was coming in to land.  Perhaps if they had, it would have went a long way towards alleviating passengers' fears.  The main thing passengers want on an airplane nowadays is the feeling of control.  The feeling that the flight crew is in control of the plane and passengers at all times.

And finally, where is the musicians' side of the story?  What do they have to say about it?  Here's one possibility that I haven't seen offered up for discussion.  Perhaps they are immature pranksters and purposely tried to frighten other passengers.  Maybe they thought it was great fun to see the looks of fear on the other passengers.  I'd like to think that's not the case, but I don't know because they have not spoken up.

What if one day you were to read the headline, "Syrian musicians explode plane mid-flight".  And the ensuing story described a group of terrorists who passed themselves off as musicians for a number of years while plotting against America.  Would that really sound so far-fetched?