An AS flight going from SEA to ONT, returned to the airport on Saturday, after a possible explosive device was discovered. So I have heard, a young boy asked a flight attendant to get some crayons out of his backpack. She didn't find crayons...
Apparently, when the child's backpack was screened at security, another identical backpack went through directly after. The boy picked up the wrong backpack. The other pack was actually the one that Alaska uses to trip the airport security equipment. The device obviously isn't explosive...its just made to look that way. The plane safely returned to Seattle, but the passengers were deplaned through chutes just in case.

Although this is not that unusual of an occurence, it certainly raises questions about the vigilance of airport security personnel. After all, they have to pay careful attention to dozens of people every minute, and are probably only making the minimum wage, or a little above.

Any comments?

[This message has been edited by West Coast Flyer (edited 03-11-2000).]

Those minimum wage rent-a-cops at the airport do a good job deterring the nutcases and crackpots. Actually, it is the metal detectors that do the screening versus the rocket scientists standing there chewing their cud.

Someone who is serious about taking out an airliner can very easily do so without using crude handguns or bombs. SA-5's and SA-7's (surface to air missiles) are readily available throughout the CIS/Africa, and can be had for $15k to $20k. These can be brought into the country via boat, or along either the Canadian or Mexican "border". Then, just standoff a mile from the runway, point and pull the trigger. I assure you that a lumbering airliner makes an incredibly easy to hit target for such a device.

It is the CIA that is providing the true airport security; via buyoffs, threats, bribes and a million other venues (that we will never know about) to ensure that the above scenario does not play itself out via the fringe groups throughout the world.

The original story is located here: http://www.cnn.com/2000/US/03/11/seattle.jet/index.html

I have a recurring concern. I wear programmable hearing aids and carry a little remote control that looks a bit like a pager. When I go through security, it goes in the "empty your pockets" basket. Typically, the minimum-wage type picks it up, turns it over, looks at it, and hands it to me. Occasionally, he/she will ask me what it is. I say "remote control for my hearling aids." He/she says "Oh," and hands it to me. Very infrequently, I'll be asked to turn it on. When I do, two little red lights flash. That's it. Again, "Oh," and return it to me. That thing could just as easily be the remote control for the bomb in my checked luggage. It's sort of scary.

After an incident at LAX on Labor Day going through the security checkpoint in the DL terminal, I think twice about security and my safety. I've noted the incident in another thread many months back here on FT, but it will always make me about how easy it really is to get something on the plane.

Actually though, my biggest concern is not bringing a bomb or something on the plane, but watching my laptop and briefcase to make sure that they don't get stolen going through the checkpoint .

The story that started this thread reinforces this idea. The kid picked up the wrong backpack. It could just as easily be that someone else (the bad guy) picked up his backpack intentionally. Bottom line: watch your back (pack) while you're going through that machine.

Maybe its me, but I sense that security is more lax the ever. Last week I went throught the metal detector at EWR wearing a big heavy watch that always sets if off. This time, nada. It was crowded and I assume that they turned down the sensitivity.
More troubling is my experience on Sunday at CDG. In the past I have always found it to be very security conscious. Sunday, no one asked me ANY questions (did you pack your own bags, etc.), the little security stickers were no longer put on my carry-ons, etc. Once again, they were very busy. One of the two banks of emmigration booths was closed resulting in ererybody having to use the other. Of course, there were 4 officers checking documents. The problem was, once the people from 4 lines cleared the booths, they all had to funnel through ONE metal detector. The other 3 next to it were unmanned. As the lines backed up further and further, they eventually opened another, but I spent a frustrating 20 minutes standing still. To the x-ray machine operator's credit, he asked me if I had a knife in my carry on. I did. I had a small pen knife I always carry with me in my toiletries kit. When I told him that it was a pen knife I use to cut cheese, he said OK, and off I went. If it was real security, and not a rush with a long line, he should have asked to see it.
I hope we don't have another tragedy to get security back to where it means something.

I travel with a laptop bag that has to be a nightmare for security. All sorts of little pockets and such.

But one thing I've noticed is that while they will ask you to turn on the laptop, they never ask you to plug in the AC adapter.

The adapter is 6x3x2. You could certainly fit enough explosives in that to pack a pretty good punch.

As for the questions, I maintain that it's a classic example of the current "Let's look like we're doing something" administration.

The recent smuggling operations at MIA was the best example of locking the front door but leaving the back door wide open. Had that been explosives instead of cocaine, and had it been coordinated, south FLA would have been covered with flaming wreckage and potentially THOUSANDS of dead and injured.


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"I will not be pushed, filed, stamped, indexed, briefed, debriefed or numbered. My life is my own."

Agree with Vulcan and Jon.

On my last return from FRA on LH, there were no questions, no nothing- and it was NOT busy!

Similarly, last week at EWR, when it was very busy, although I usually/invariably trip the metal detector as well- nothing!

It doen't help make you feel especially secure.

My security experiences (all at Newark, term. C):

1) On more than one occasion, I have been told to proceed to the second metal detector so I wouldn't hold up the line. I just kept walking and no one stopped me. I could have been packed to the teeth in "bad stuff."

2) One of my travel tools is a box of Altoids. I always put it in the cup, and no one EVER bothers to open it to see whats inside. That thing full of C4 could take a regional jet down.

3) My little cousin had a bouncy ball. She dropped it. It bounced through the Exit thing with the monitors, I ran after it, and no one stopped me.

Amen! We're not really much safer now than we were before we started paying millions to ensure safety.