Cathay Boy

Every airplane is equipped with an axe that only the pilots and crew knows the location. Also he's the darn pilot and we have seem how a pilot can really do some evil things if he wanted to (Germanwings), stopping him for a "pointed-object, suspicion of knife" is just plain stupid.

ACARS

Given how the Germanwings tragedy has effectively rendered flight crew security screening utterly redundant, I would imagine the security teams at LHR who check flight crews will be attempting to arrest individuals for toothpicks in an effort to justify their existence.
Wouldn't be surprised if this 'blade' had been in the Pilot's bag for months if not years and merely forgotten. I forget about water bottles in my bag on an infrequent yet occasional basis, and wonder why my bag us pulled for secondary only then to be a bit embarrassed at my own forgetfulness.

Cathay Boy

This reminds me of my friend's funny story. His mother is moving to USA with him and was packing his bags, all of it. Apparently she packed one of those old Chinese meat chopper knifes (those that are HUGE, not the size you see on the market now, but HUGE like bigger than a child's head) in his carry-on bag without telling him (she never flew a plane before). He heads for the States first, and he actually went through HKIA security without a problem. But when he was connecting in Japan, as he goes through security all of a sudden they took his bag and a few officers were gestured to join, and they pulled him to a room and with 4-5 officers surrounding him they asked him what is he doing with that huge chop knife, LOL. He was almost arrested and after much begging and pleading of innocence they let him go after a few hours, LOL.

nihonto

This completely vanished from the news. No followup. Still very curious to see the "knives / pointed thingies" this guy was supposed to be bringing on the plane. The charge was not bringing them on the plane as mentioned, it is officially:

"arrested on suspicion of possession of an offensive weapon in a public place and possession of a knife blade / sharp pointed article in a public place"

The knife blade / sharp pointed article is what is bugging me about this, as they have not specifically said it was a knife, but are using this charge. He could have had a pointed stick.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=piWCBOsJr-w

nshizuka25

Any knives more than a 3 inches can put you in trouble (I believe this is what deem to be enough to cause fatal injury to internal organs - mainly heart.)

https://www.gov.uk/buying-carrying-knives

Unless it is a ridiculous knife, otherwise I would say the charges is just insane.

Maybe the pilot can use the following to get away with charges

Good reasons for carrying a knife
Examples of good reasons to carry a knife in public can include:

taking knives you use at work to and from work

hillrider

Did CX serve a meal on the ground on the plane itself after cancellation?

If so, WOW, that's customer service.

QRC3288

rumor i heard out of CX City was "kitchen knives". not sure if they were the type on top of table for eating alongside a fork and spoon, or the sharper/larger type you'd be using to cut food in the kitchen.

amgsl55

Yes meal on ground
Shortly after the beginning of meal, passengers could leave n go to UK border

CX828

I have to say, whilst the actions of the pilot were very silly (bringing knives as hand baggage - although I think it had no malicious intention), I think CX did a very good job handling this situation as it was not in their control what LHR security did.
I think serving a dinner, whilst hotel accommodation and onward journey plans were finalized, was good customer service. You can guarantee that other airlines would not have done all this, and likely would have ushered everyone into the gate area until things could be sorted.

This is where CX cabin crew come in to their own. The serving of dinner was likely a joint decision with the ISM and perhaps ground staff to keep pax happy and occupied whilst the situation was developing. I have no idea if the crew will be paid for their work on the ground, but they could easily have decided not to serve any food and wait to be taken back to the crew hotel. especially if they were not going to be paid for service on the ground.

pvgman

Again Airport security and their nonsense, Pilot shouldn't be checked for this kind of things, scan them for drugs, guns, large liquids eventually but knifes...
They have access to an axe, most of the time under their seat, if a pilot is really determined enough to crash his plane, he will find a way to do it, without any need to bring things on board.

hillrider

Absolutely amazing. A U.S. airline would have offloaded every passenger immediately (as they don't have provisions for flight attendants working on the ground, and any volunteers would be persecuted by their union) and left everyone standing in a huge interminable queue to get their coupons/whatever. And in my experience, BA would have done the same, but with an added element of arrogance and surliness.

Must fly CX more. And if it were easy to find CX's real business class prices I probably would!