"When the Yankees Skipped Security"
 

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000...907335398.html

An article about how sports teams' flights are secured.

And the next-to-last paragraph again exposes the joke that is TSA policy.

If players are deemed a possible risk and must be screened like any other passenger, how are they allowed to bring through the one thing that regular passengers are adamantly warned is a threat to aviation, namely liquids? You either let the players through with no screening, or you consider them a possible threat just like every other passenger, and you hold them to the same exact screening standards.

Regarding pre-9/11/01 security for teams --

If only Bill Wernecke and his common sense were in charge of the TSA.

This is a real "trusted traveler" program. But, read the whole thing they no longer do it.

They have to submit their names to trusted traveler every flight. The bus has to be checked and made "sterile." They get to take scary water and wear their shoes, but the real reason this is done is to prevent the disruption to operations in the terminal. For a charter flight where everyone knows everyone else, it is stupid at the highest level. Once the cockpit doors are secured, the only danger to the flight is the pilots.

It's a team! A professional team that knows each other and their oddities at a ridiculous level of detail. And if one guy gets freaky, twenty five highly trained athletes can't stop him?

I know, I did read the whole article. I was observing that if only the same logic that applied ten years ago still applied today. But of course the world changed on 9/11: now you can't even trust your own teammates, who you see more than your family during the season, not to be terrorists.

What a charade.

Geez-the anti-christ* gets all the breaks ;)




*Hey, I'm a Red Sox fan so what else would I call the Yankees? ;)

Wirelessly posted (Motorola DynaTAC: BlackBerry9630/5.0.0.1030 Profile/MIDP-2.1 Configuration/CLDC-1.1 VendorID/104)

Binary liquid explosives as a threat aboard a commercial aircraft is a myth. Its no surprise that some people that are screened outside the view of the general public can skip some the security theatre.

If the airline decides that they want to protect their pilots, crew and plane and hire a private security firm to screen charter flights, fine, that's up to them, and they can face any consequences of teams switching charter contracts to airlines that don't do that crap. But the TSA shouldn't be spending a dime on screening sports charters.

Something I did just think of is that my beloved St. Louis Blues fly Miami Air in and out of Spirit of St. Louis Airport (KSUS) which is a general aviation airport with no TSA security. I wonder if they're still forced to do this security theater with screenings at Scottrade Center even though they're not flying on a commercial airline and not flying out of a commercial airport.

I must take exception only to this: :eek:

Are we forgetting the dangers of deferred maintenance, the effects of corrosion and metal fatigue, equipment failure, extreme weather events and flocks of large birds? Some of these risks can be and are mitigated. Some, not so much. For the most part, the pilots and flight crew don't scare me, nor do the passengers, even if they are highly trained professional athletes.

Oooh! Oooh! I have an idea to really improve aviation safety. Let's move all the TSOs outside near the runways, replace their squiggly pens and magic lights with megaphones, and use their raucous "barking" to scare away the birds. Sully would approve.

this thread is not really about practical issues
 

It's a fascinating thread, to be sure but belongs in discussion forum so I';ll move it there.


No harm meant.

thanks

squeakr

co mod TS/S Practical Issues