Yeah, good point. No key like a car.

Based on multiple places I've worked, the stereotypes surrounding cleaning crews frequently ring true: seemingly recruited off a pizza-box ad and more interested in stealing stuff than in cleaning.

Could I imagine one of these types breaking into a closed airport bar and stealing alcohol? Perhaps. But making it into an airplane via an emergency exit or even the main door?

On the other hand, if this were a crew hired to clean the actual airplane, I could easily imaging someone prying open a cabinet that has alcohol in it...

Because cockpit doors will be locked and no one should be in cockpit. When captain & FO who went out to get lunch in the entire concourse.

Prior to the TSA, nobody was that stupid.

The thinking on board was that if you wanted your bomb to remain on the plane, make the break in look like a simple burglary of liquor and hope no one looks closer.

That explanation actually does make sense...if you ransack an office and make it look like a meth addict was looking for valuables to pawn, they're less likely to find the bug you hid above the ceiling grid.

That having been said, I'm not the expert here. Has there ever been an actual case of someone planting a bomb anywhere, rigging the break-in to look like a drug-crazed thug?

At some point, if we act too paranoid, the terrorists won't even need bombs to cause terror. It's been noted before that a dozen or so operatives could, in a coordinated "attack", do things at various major airports to cause terminal dumps, gumming up travel worldwide.

I've wondered before even if evacuation and searching are the appropriate response to bomb threats, which are, without fail, attempts to get out of work/school early, get out of an exam, or screw with someone you don't like. When I worked at a high school, I was told to never answer a ringing pay phone: students would call in bomb threats to the lobby pay phones, and if an employee answered the call, they would have no choice but to report the incident to the principal and have the school evacuated.

There's not really a way to "break in" to a commercial aircraft parked at the gate. In fact after some inadvertent slide deployments at US, it became procedure for a designated FA to make sure all the slides were disarmed before leaving so the cleaners / caterers / mechanics could open any door without getting hurt (the only ones we kept armed were 2R on the B757 and B727).

The dirty little secret in the airline industry is the widespread habit of people helping themselves to booze to take home or on an overnight (Google "crew juice" ). It sounds like in this case someone really overdid it, and the Station Manager called in a sheriff's deputy so the word gets out in the system for everyone to dial it back a bit.

Why would the terrorists need bombs any more, anyway?

They've got the TSA to frighten people for them.

I think the headline should be something more like 'plane security breached by poor security practices (TSA)'

This is bad - excuses for them to request additional funding to hire more clerks, more layers of security at the airport.

Perhaps, just maybe, they will have random screening of airport sub/contractors airside ...

There's a first time for everything.

It's possible that someone buried an IED in my back yard last night; that would be the first time that happened, too.

Is it probable? No.

It's pretty improbable that someone's going to take a critical part through the checkpoint concealed in their collar or hair, either, but I've seen a reliable TSO defend the collar searches here.

So the same people who can't find multiple pounds of ex**osive during a bag check at Fayetteville can be relied on to find something small enough to be hidden in a t-shirt neckline?

(I wonder if they scrutinize hearing aids).

Why?

For the life of me I can't recall now - I'm not sure why those doors were always left armed.