Re: Security checks for crews are getting to the riduculous!
Whether the airport security is applied to crew or passengers, it begs the question of how effective such security is. It is my opinion that there is no such thing as airport security and it can never be achieved. The bad guys are always going to be able to see the holes and opportunities; we will always be one step or more behind. Airport security did not fail on 9/11, remember, and all the steps taken since would not have prevented the attacks on that date. Concentrating on the stupid, which is what is being done now, prevents a more watchful, aware stance being taken, and provides opportunities for the terrorist. We are less safe now than pre 9/11. Do I need to repeat that? We are LESS SAFE now.
Of course some places get it right, but in general in the politically correct Western nations, the appearance trumps effectiveness. Take a step back some time and just watch the security in action. Every person there has a job to do and he/she does it to the exclusion of anything going on around him. You could put a Bin Liner lookalike, with machine guns and grenades, in the security line and he would not be noticed until the idiot whose job it is to put the stuff on the belt saw him, or, more likely, until the idiot whose job it is to watch the Xray monitor sees the images of the weapons (or the software picked it up and sounded the alert). Nobody is prepared to see anything other than what they see on a regular basis, and nobody is prepared to react even if they did see anything. Moronic automatons is all they are. Look at the shooting incident in LAX for proof. We hear about bad guys getting onto airplanes, but do we ever hear about them being stopped and apprehended at the security checkpoint?
Proof? Look around to see what response is available in the unlikely event that airport security flushes a terrorist in the security conga line (never has happened and will never happen either). There is usually only one policeman with a 9mm, and even if there was a SWAT team, how could they take down a couple of armed terrorists, prepared to die for their cause, amongst the hundreds of screaming, panicked passengers? In other words the authorities know that what they are doing is bs; why are so many otherwise intelligent people taken in by it?
In order to make us safer in the air, we need to put our attention toward airplane security, and let airport security revert to the previous level. All the security at the airport will not help one bit when confronted with the airborne hijacker or terrorist.
On larger airplanes, closing the flight deck door and not opening it under any threat conditions is all that is required. In the event of an attack in the cabin, cut off communications with them (so you cannot be pressured by threats) and land immediately. Do not allow any chance of a takeover of the airplane. On smaller airplanes without a door or cabin crew, learn how to immobilise people walking around or carry a weapon for protection. But forget airport security; they will not help you in any way, and obviously cannot do so once you are in the air in any case.
Anybody with a brain bigger than that of a garden snail knows it is all about Power and nothing to do with security.