Mid-December 2004, Miami Airport...
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I am 747 captain, I arrived the previous night from Buenos Aires. Normally I fly for Aerolineas, but I took a leave of absence to fly with Southern Winds and in charge of training their crews. I was on my way to San Antonio, TX to take delivery of LV-AZF, a 747-200, and ferry the plane to Argentina. With me, another captain and a flight engineer. We are in jeans and t-shirts. We each have our important "pilot equipment" with our carry-on flight bags, in case the airline sends the bags we checked-in to... Khabarovsk. or worse, to Podunk...
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Hell, we are in Miami - It is almost like being in the USA there, even some people occasionally speak English... And of course I babble with my crew in Spanish, about where to have our before-takeoff beer. Then we head for security, to hug our friendly TSA agents, probably named Garcia, Gomez and Guttierez... and all are high school graduates...
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We beep the machine a few times, and were selected for higher level of security check, indeed, we had bought our one-way tickets one hour ago for real American cash... Open you bag, I was told, and of course appears a Boeing AOM manual, then pulling it out, my earphones, a 747 QRH, my crew ID from Aerolineas, a flashlight, mobile phone and other suspicious terrorist items, and sorry to say, my Victorinox Swiss Army knife I forgot in my bag... a deadly weapon, soon confiscated. How in hell am I going to open my bottle of wine tonight...?
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No need to say, my colleagues are subject to the same treatment. We are questioned by the agents, as to why we carry pilot equipment. I explain briefly the purpose of out trip. What airline...? Southern Winds... they look at each other, dont know that airline... They call a supervisor... He speaks English, I speak English to him. He asks for our passports (Argentina, with crew D-1 Visas)... Show your wallets... Mine contains a California driver's license (I kept that one current) as it makes renting a car easier in the US... They see a US/FAA pilot license, on it, it says "nationality USA"... then the supervisor grabs my Argentina passport and the US pilot license, and asks me "why a different first name...? One says Pablo, the other Paul..." I explain that I changed my name to Pablo in Argentina... Then he asks "Do you have a US passport...?" - No, not anymore, I took Argentina citizenship (hmm...! A traitor to our Land of Liberty...!) Then he calls the airport police, two officers show-up... Re-explanation... Then the TSA supervisor asks a police officer to take the 3 passports, and go show them to Immigration, in oder to see if the visas are real (another 30 minutes waiting time) - Finally, we get cleared, takes us 5 minutes to re-pack our bags (ourselves). We had to rush to the airplane, was last call. And worse, the plane was a 757, we were only trained in 747s for hijacking a plane...
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I have to congratulate the TSA for their vigilence, they certainly saved another terrorist airplane disaster, this one crashing on the Alamo "River Walk". These Argentina gauchos (who hide former Nazis) have close ties with Al Qaeda... My suggestion is that TSA provides bar service with cold beers for these inconvenienced terrorists, delayed for security reasons... By the way, who got the Swiss Army knife...?
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Happy contrails